Avantasia – Ghostlights

Avantasia are back with their new album.  As always it’s done on a grand scale with a whole host of guest singers and musicians, with guests this time including Sharon Den Adel (Within Temptation), Marco Hietala (Nightwish), Dee Snider (Twisted Sister) and Geoff Tate (Queensryche).  Check out the full list of musicians on lead vocals or lead guitar further down this review.

Originally a side project of Edguy’s Tobias Sammet, Avantasia has grown to a hugely successful project.  Calling this symphonic power metal just doesnt do it justice.  The music is so well written – plenty of intricate melodies but with that power metal core coming from the guitars.  There’s such a wide range of sounds here that even if you strip away the vocals all the songs stand out from each other.  Once you add in the vocals the differences are magnified – the use of different singers for every song means they immediately sound different.  The range of singers used is impressive – each singer has a distinctive voice, and some like Sharon Den Adel are unmistakable.  Some of the songs were written with a specific singer in mind while in other cases a singer was chosen to fit a song that was already written – either way the finished songs work perfectly.

The album kicks off with “Mystery of a blood red rose”, a song that sounds like it would be at home on a Meatloaf album – and would almost certainly be one of the best tracks on the album.

From then on the album continues in the same vein – top quality songs.  The use of so many guest vocalists means every song sounds very different from the previous one, but they still feel like they belong together – if it wasn’t so well done it could feel like a compilation CD from different artists, but Tobias Sammet has written such a good album that the songs feel like they belong together despite the differences between them.

“Isle of evermore” is one of my favourite tracks thanks to the beautiful vocals from Sharon Den Adel.

Really there is something for everyone in this album – different songs will appeal depending on your mood at the time, whether you want somehting rocky and fast or a slow ballad, but “Mystery of a blood red rose” is the track I’d suggest people check out first.

A superb album.

1 MYSTERY OF A BLOOD RED ROSE
Lead vocals: Tobias Sammet
Lead guitar: Sascha Paeth

2 LET THE STORM DESCEND UPON YOU
Lead vocals: Tobias Sammet, Jorn Lande, Ronnie Atkins, Robert Mason
Lead guitar: Oliver Hartmann

3 THE HAUNTING
Lead vocals: Dee Snider, Tobias Sammet
Lead guitar: Sascha Paeth

4 SEDUCTION OF DECAY
Lead vocals: Geoff Tate, Tobias Sammet
Lead guitar: Sascha Paeth

5 GHOSTLIGHTS
Lead vocals: Michael Kiske, Tobias Sammet, Jorn Lande
Lead guitar: Sascha Paeth, Oliver Hartmann

6 DRACONIAN LOVE
Lead vocals: Herbie Langhans, Tobias Sammet
Lead guitar: Sascha Paeth

7 MASTER OF THE PENDULUM
Lead vocals: Marco Hietala, Tobias Sammet
Lead guitar: Sascha Paeth

8 ISLE OF EVERMORE
Lead vocals: Sharon Den Adel, Tobias Sammet

9 BABYLON VAMPYRES
Lead vocals: Tobias Sammet, Robert Mason
Lead guitar: Bruce Kulick, Oliver Hartmann, Sascha Paeth

10 LUCIFER
Lead vocals: Jorn Lande, Tobias Sammet
Lead guitar: Bruce Kulick

11 UNCHAIN THE LIGHT
Lead vocals: Tobias Sammet, Ronnie Atkins, Michael Kiske
Lead guitar: Sascha Paeth, Oliver Hartmann

12 A RESTLESS HEART AND OBSIDIAN SKIES
Lead vocals: Bob Catley, Tobias Sammet
Lead guitar: Bruce Kulick