Author: Rok Klemše
Artist: Sonata Arctica
Label: Nuclear Blast
Release: 2007
Let me say right off the bat that Sonata Arctica used to be one of my absolute favorite power metal bands. The excellent debut Ecliptica (1999) and its follow-up, maybe even better, Silence (2001), got spun countless times. Sadly, their later releases haven’t reached that status, at least for me personally. Maybe only Winterheart’s Gulid (2003) is still worth a mention. The Finns stick to putting out a record roughly every two years, and this time is no different. Three years have passed since their last record, Reckoning Night. So what does the new album bring us? Well, sadly nothing dreamy, as the album title promises (Unia is Finnish for dreams).
I’d say Sonata Arctica have been repeating themselves quite a bit since Silence. Even though their releases are always pretty high quality, they’ve never again reached the freshness, originality and punchy power metal of those albums. Unia doesn’t bring any crazy changes either, but luckily it’s not Reckoning Night 2, since it shows a decent dose of freshness and spontaneity. Unfortunately, though, Unia doesn’t have the thing I remember Sonata Arctica for, because the departure from their “trademark” sound is considerable. The songs are darker and less melodic, and the biggest letdown is that there’s hardly a track you could actually remember. Only a few moments really stick in your head. Where are the soaring, adrenaline-pumping, fantastic choruses? The music has become quite progressive, and almost every song has a heaping basketful of different sections and tempo changes. This is exactly where the audience will split. I more than welcome the band’s evolution, but honestly, its current direction doesn’t smell like Sunday lunch to me…
Tony Kakko’s vocals are excellent as usual, but this time they mostly stay in the lower and middle registers, which gives the album a gloomier atmosphere. Another big change is the (over)use of multi-layered vocals. Instrumentally, I personally miss a few more guitars, which are pushed a bit into the background in favor of symphonic elements, and the solos bring nothing new, just the typical fast, melodic Sonata Arctica runs. The bass guitar is mixed very well, not too much, not too little, and every now and then even a short bass solo cheers you up. Which brings us to the album’s biggest minus. Most of the record stays in mid-tempo, and the fast, supersonic tracks like Wolf and Rave (Silence) or The Cage (Winterheart’s Gulid) are nowhere to be heard. Only The Harvest picks up the pace a little, while the other 11 songs stay mid-paced, and the two ballads are, naturally, slow. On Unia you won’t find a single killer track that makes you break your neck headbanging. There’s hardly a moment on the record that rises above average, and the songs are as alike as two peas in a pod. The formula is practically the same every time: it starts with a boring, uninspired riff accompanied by high, slow piano melodies, and when Tony’s vocals come in, those fade into the background, and the guitars push their way back to the front with similar droning riffs. Then when the chorus kicks in, it gets propped up by backing vocals and multiple layers… At least the keyboards are really good at times.
But alas, the moments that will stick around even in the medium-term memory are very rare. The guitars sound nearly the same in every song, the keyboards play similar slow melodies, and the drums are more or less just there for decoration. Still, you can find a few excellent moments on Unia. The fast The Harvest is definitely one of the album’s highlights, and Caleb would have worked out as a great epic if a pathetic monologue hadn’t spoiled the beginning (Caleb is the start of a trilogy that was begun from the end on Silence with The End ot the Chapter and continued on Reckoning Night with Don’t Say a Word, and it’s about a man who grows up to become an obsessed stalker). Also worth mentioning is My Dream’s But a Drop of Fuel for a Nightmare, which at times even recalls Blind Guardian.
With the experimenting on Unia, Sonata Arctica went a bit overboard and lost the sound of the excellent power metal they started with. I think old fans of the band will be pretty divided, and if you’re a brand-new Sonata Arctica fan, you’re better off starting with their older releases, Ecliptica or Silence.
Lineup
Tony Kakko – vocals
Jani Liimatainen – guitar
Marko Paasikoski – bass guitar
Tommy Portimo – drums
Henrik Klingenberg – keyboards
Production
Tony Kakko & Sonata Arctica
Track List
1. In Black and White 05:04
2. Paid in Full 04:24
3. For the Sake of Revenge 03:23
4. It Won’t Fade 05:59
5. Under Your Tree 05:14
6. Caleb 06:17
7. The Vice 04:09
8. My Dream’s But a Drop of Fuel for a Nightmare 06:13
9. The Harvest 04:19
10. The Worlds Forgotten, the Words Forbidden 02:57
11. Fly with the Black Swan 05:08
12. Good Enough Is Good Enough 05:32
