AVANTASIA — The Wicked Symphony (review)

AVANTASIA — The Wicked Symphony album cover Album · 2010 · Heavy Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
Stephen
"The Wicked Symphony" is the fourth installment of German power/melodic metal project fronted by Edguy's mastermind, Tobias Sammet. This album was released together with its other twin, "Angel of Babylon" on April 2010, and also acted as the second part of "The Scarecrow Saga". Produced by Sammet and Sascha Paeth, the sound quality in this album is just magnificent and crisp.

The ambitious opener, which stated as the three-man duel between Sammet/Lande/Russell, is a fantastic combo with a tremendous chorus, but somewhat a 9-minutes track felt too extensive. A shorter track will be much better but still this is a strong door-kicker. Kiske's "Wastelands" took you back to the glorious Helloween day with its majestic chorus. This is my best pick of the album. "Dying For An Angel" is a mind-blowing commercial melodic metal with Klaus Meine. "Forever Is A Long Time" is a wonderful Lande track with a monstrous chorus. "States of Matter" featured a modern riffing and Russell Allen's soaring vocal is the song's highlight. "The Edge" is a good power ballad and marked the last beautiful piece of the album.

The Ripper Owen's track, "Scales of Justice" is actually a good Iced Earth style metal but nothing's really memorable here. "Blizzard On A Broken Mirror" has some powerful scream with a modern-day Iron Maiden composition and also a decent track. "Runaway Train" is a decent ballad but it's just too long and quite boring, "Crestfallen" started pretty good but went downhill on the chorus, and "Black Wings" is a horrible filler, definitely the worst here.

Bottom line, "The Wicked Symphony" might not be a good recommendation for fans of true power metal since this is a varied record and contained too many ballads for some, but if you like Sammet's different orientation for the last couple of years whom had moved away from its original power metal path, this album is a heart-pleasing release.
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