Tobias Sammet releases the next Avantasia album in February. As always it’s music on a grand scale featuring a lineup of top singers. Joining Tobias Sammet on vocals on this album are Hansi Kursch, Ronnie Atkins, Jorn Lande, Mille Petrozza, Candice Night, Geoff Tate, Eric Martin, Bob Catley and Michael Kiske. As Avantasia fans will know the songs sometimes feature a single vocalist but ofen feature anything up to half a dozen vocalists in a single song. It’s one of the things that helps make Avantasia so epic and over the top.
The last Avantasia album, Ghostlights, was an absolutely superb album, so the question is whether or not this new album can live up to the standards of that album.
The album kicks off with “Ghost in the moon” which is almost ten minutes long. It’s the only song on the album where Tobias Sammet is the only vocalist. It’s not the song I’d have chosen to start the album – some of the others are better suited to that – shorter and more catchy.
“Requiem for a dream” is a fairly fast song, and features vocals from Michael Kiske. It’s all very well done but it just feels too similar to the songs on previous albums with Kiske as a vocalist
The final song on the album is “Maniac” – a cover version of the song by Michael Sembello, best known for featuring in the movie Flashdance. It’s definitely an odd choice to include in the album instead of an Avantasia song – it’s more a “bonus track” type of thing, but in this case it’s in the main part of the album – there is a bonus track on some versions of the album (“Heart”), so it seems odd to have an Avantasia song as the bonus track and a cover as part of the main album. All that aside, it’s a great cover version.
This is an excellent album…but it’s just not quite as good as “Ghostlights”. It’s still an album that you really should listen to – it’s really good stuff but this is only 8/10 whereas Ghostlights was nearer 10/10.
A great album that’s well worth a listen.
“Moonglow” will be released on 15th February 2019
Track listing:
1. Ghost in the Moon
2. Book of Shallows (feat Hansi Kursch , Ronnie Atkins , Jorn Lande & Mille Petrozza)
3. Moonglow (feat. Candice Night)
4. The Raven Child (feat Hansi Kursch & Jorn Lande)
5. Starlight (feat. Ronnie Atkins)
6. Invincible (feat. Geoff Tate)
7. Alchemy (feat. Geoff Tate)
8. The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (feat. Ronnie Atkins, Jorn Lande, Eric Martin, Bob Catley & Geoff Tate)
9. Lavender (feat. Bob Catley)
10. Requiem for a Dream (feat. Michael Kiske)
11. Maniac
- 10.99