Label: Frontiers Music Srl.
Release date: June 18, 2021
Production: Aldo Lonobile
Album length: 58.49 min
Genre: Symphonic Power Metal
Rating: 8.5/10
Timo Tolkki, the Finnish guitar virtuoso, composer and producer, father of Finnish power metal legends Stratovarius, is back after two years with the fourth album from his Avalon project, which he’s titled »The Enigma Birth«. The new album, or rather the new metal opera story, doesn’t kick off a new trilogy. Nor does it deliver some kind of concept
Yep. You don’t even have to listen. With Tolkki you know exactly what the guy is going to serve up. Power metal heavily backed by arrangements seasoned with neo-classicism, even showing a few tendencies to drift toward progressive metal. At the same time it stays loyal to tight, compact arrangements that often call for a stampede of double bass drum pedals – which gives the songs a dynamic rhythmic flow (even if the sound is at times so ‘kitschy’ that you suspect some ‘clicking’), while above it all the splendor of pomp and ultra-musical catchiness runs riot. On top of that you lay authoritative, signature vocals that lift the highly musical foundation of the tracks even higher. All of this is a must in the symphonic pomp of power metal. Tolkki knows that all too well, whether we’re talking the classic days of Stratovarius or his other two projects, Revolution Renaissance and Symfonia. »The Enigma Birth« is also a record that guarantees everything Tolkki has spoiled us with in the past.
Timo Tolkki wrote the material for the new Avalon album over the course of last year, so it arrives relatively fast on the heels of its predecessor. As we’ve gotten used to from the project’s previous three albums, the new one also features a whole bunch of guest vocalists, namely: James Labrie (Dream Theater), Jake E (ex-Amaranthe, Cyrha), Marina La Torraca (Phantom Elite, Exit Eden), Brittney Slayes (Unleash The Archers), Raphael Mendes (Icon Of Sin), Fabio Lione (Rhapsody, Angra, Eternal Idol), Caterina Nix (Chaos Magic) and YouTube vocal star PelleK. A colorful palette of singers is pretty much a necessity in this situation, since it spices up the development and atmosphere of the tracks to the point where the listener doesn’t spend too much time worrying about reheated clichés. The nature of the compositions is also very well spread out. From ballads to razor-sharp power metal charges and mid-tempo moments with just the right dose of bombastic theatrical drama. Yep. The opener and the closer are as fast as they come. The showing from the varied cast of female and male vocalists is brilliant, fascinating and one of the biggest draws of this album too. This time the vocals of Fabio Lione (on the male side) work especially well – which hardly comes as a surprise (the link between Rhapsody, Angra and Stratovarius has always been rock solid) – and so do those of Caterina Nix (on the female side). Raphael Mendes’s vocal, meanwhile, is a direct answer to how Bruce Dickinson’s voice would work in ‘Timo Tolkki style power metal’, with Beaty And War fleetingly pulling toward something that could have come straight off the classic Stratovarius album »Infinite« (2000). Why can’t Avalon draw directly on Stratovarius, even though »The Enigma Birth« is also tailor-made for Stratovarius fans? Because Jens Johansson is missing entirely.
Over the last twenty years such a glut of records has come out on the power metal scene that telling them apart sometimes becomes the riddle of all riddles. A tangled mess. What does that mean? That this album will grab absolutely everyone: the strict power metal specialists, i.e. among others the sworn devotees of the life and work of Timo Tolkki, as well as all the freshly landed newcomers to metal, for whom power metal is a springboard on the adventure of discovering this genre in all its evolutionary glory and mystery.
The connection with the excellent Italian multi-instrumentalist and producer, also a composer and first and foremost a guitarist, Aldo Lonobile (Secret Sphere, Archon Angel, Sweet Oblivion) is very important. He took over the production helm already on the previous Avalon album, which contributed to a hugely appealing liveliness and a modernization – an updating of the sound of this Tolkki project. On the new album too, his final-revision work put the important dot on the “i” that guarantees, or rather maintains, the quality coherence of the previous record. As mentioned. A superbly balanced album in terms of how the tracks are placed according to the nature of each composition, accompanied throughout by excellent production (especially in how the guitars are laid out in the mix). Above it all, and this has to be pointed out, Tolkki’s signature, instantly recognizable approach to guitar playing naturally plays an integral role. Composing included. The very philosophy of how he sees the fusion of metal with opera and classical music. That’s what gives the fourth Avalon album its recognizability and uniqueness too. The guy remains brilliant in his creating and in his interpretation of guitar playing. May inspiration never abandon him, then. As long as Tolkki’s playing keeps conjuring up salvos of melancholy like on the fascinating ballad Another Day, there’s surely no need to fear that.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list:
1. The Enigma Birth (feat. Pellek)
2. I Just Collapse (feat. Caterina Nix)
3. Memories (feat. Caterina Nix, Brittney Slayes)
4. Master Of Hell (feat. Raphael Mendes)
5. Beautiful Lie (feat. James LaBrie)
6. Truth (feat. Jake E)
7. Another Day (feat. Marina La Torraca)
8. Beauty And War (feat. Raphael Mendes)
9. Dreaming (feat. Fabio Lione)
10. The Fire And The Sinner (feat. Jake E, Brittney Slayes)
11. Time (feat. Marina La Torraca)
12. Without Fear (feat. Fabio Lione)
Musicians:
Timo Tolkki – guitar
Andrea Arcangeli – bass guitar
Marco Lazzarini – drums
Antonio Agate – keyboards and orchestrations
Federico Maraucci – additional guitars
Aldo Lonobile – additional guitars
