Label: earMUSIC Records
Release date: September 23, 2022
Production: Matias Kupiainen
Genre: Power Metal
Album length: 58.06 min
Rating: 8.5/10
Stratovarius are a band that knows exactly what survival means. Rising from the ashes even after everyone has written you off. “Survive” is the fifth album from the reborn Stratovarius since 2008. After its predecessor “Eternal” (2015), we waited a solid seven years for the new one, the longest gap between any two studio albums by this revered, long-lived Finnish power metal institution.
Many people turned their backs on the band after its founder, the unforgettable guitar wizard and virtuoso Timo Tolkki, left in 2008, but Stratovarius clawed their way out of that free fall into a bottomless pit as early as the following year, when they released “Solaris” (2009). That’s when they brought in wunderkind Matias Kupiainen, who is by no means a carbon copy of Tolkki on guitar, but is just as classically trained and sharp, with a similar philosophy of songwriting and arranging, one that fits right in with the band’s classic era, including the cult power metal albums recorded in the nineties (“Episode” and “Visions”). The story of a Stratovarius without their founding chief is always debatable, like the one with Thin Lizzy, or (let’s rather not go there) the current one with Queensryche, but luckily Tolkki was no longer the vocalist (just the guitarist) in the 1995–2000 stretch, when Stratovarius recorded their best albums.
With both Elements albums, and especially the self-titled one from 2005, you could feel the creativity and inspiration running dry, so that ‘armageddon’ and transformation was necessary (even beneficial) for the future of a band in which only vocalist Timo Kotipelto and keyboard master Jens Johansson are left from that golden era today. So, yeah. It’s clear the band needed a transition of ‘biblical proportions’ just to be able to carry on with its career, even if many would say it would have been better to change the name as well. But there we are again, weighing it up. The Stratovarius name counts for something in the power metal world, so it’s worth keeping. And it’s true that stylistically, all the post-Tolkki albums stay credibly connected to the albums released in the Tolkki era.
Yes. Kotipelto and his instantly recognizable, charismatic voice are a huge asset. Even though the band no longer fills mid-sized to big venues, and if they came to Slovenia they’d maybe draw 300 people in the middle of Orto bar (at best, that is, with an ‘influx’ of fans from Croatia and Friuli), what keeps them going are very good to excellent post-Tolkki albums, and the newest one, “Survive”, definitely belongs among them. The same was true of its predecessor “Eternal” (2015). The band keeps up this remarkable songwriting coherence, and it’s also very successful at recreating what it did in its golden era. “Survive” brings tremendous musicality. Catchiness. Pomp and bombast that are downright enviable and that not every band knows how to pull off, which is proof that the current lineup, with its unsuspected talent and wealth of accumulated experience, also has great chemistry binding the five members together. The new album grabs you right away. With the title track, ‘blasted out’ at full speed with a highly effective chorus melody, as an opener. An expected opener. At a very fast tempo. The album stays there as it charges on with Damned. The bombast keeps a firm grip across the record, also when Broken and Firefly follow one another. The melodies simply bore into your ear in an instant.
Neo-classicism stays buddied up with the band’s power metal ID card, in fact its mandatory house furniture, on the new album too. And then some. It earned its citizenship in Stratovarius long ago. And so it remains in 2022. The precision of the tight rhythmic kinetics, ultra-sonic speed, grabby melodies with just the right dose of bombast and mood-building crescendos in the choruses, and at the same time the immensely harmonious and high-functioning partnership of two top-class virtuosos, Kupiainen and the ‘lionhearted’ Johansson (including whenever they find themselves in the crossfire of solo wizardry), add up to something truly overwhelming. Add to that the proverbial dedication to the search for ‘perfect melodies’ and the whole thing gets more than a potent outline of songwriting perfectionism!
“Survive” is an album that means more to the quintet than we might think. Stratovarius survived yet another armageddon called ‘lockdown’ and came back after seven years with a new, highly polished and accomplished product that stays connected both to the albums released since 2009 and to the times deep in the nineties, when the band broke new ground for the rise of power metal with cult classics. Their strong commitment and inspiration in the new times are crowned by the closing, very ambitious composition forged in the style of a mini epic symphony, Voice Of Thunder. The stage is set for it right before by Before The Fall, another hard-hitting and musically hypnotically catchy track on the album. The album runs over 58 minutes, which is a lot. But in inspiration and polish it doesn’t let up for a minute, and it’s effectively stamped with elements that will unite followers of the band from all eras, as well as everyone else who couldn’t care less about the ‘stormy history’ of the band’s lineup transitions and is looking first and foremost for a genuine, rock-solid, if not downright old-school, highly aesthetic re-creation of European power metal.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
1. Survive
2. Demand
3. Broken
4. Firefly
5. We Are Not Alone
6. Frozen In Time
7. World On Fire
8. Glory Days
9. Breakaway
10. Before The Fall
11. Voice Of Thunder
Stratovarius are:
Timo Kotipelto – vocals
Matias Kupiainen – guitar
Jens Johansson – keyboards
Lauri Porra – bass guitar
Rolf Pilve – drums
