STRATOVARIUS – ELEMENTS PART 2
Nuclear Blast - 2003
By Rodrigo Escandon
Oh boy! The dreaded
Elements Pt. 2 has arrived and this was probably my most
unanticipated album of the year. After hearing and absolutely hating the utterly boring
Elements Pt. 1,
Stratovarius was going to have to pull some sort of magic trick (or just compose better music) from their sleeves in order to make this release worthwhile. However, just as I feared and did not find surprising at all is that
Elements Pt. 2 is actually worse.
It seems that all the “best” songs from the recording sessions for these two releases went to Pt. 1 and this album was just an afterthought. The immediate question I have is why bother putting out two albums when the material, which was inferior to begin with, is worse the second time around?
Elements Pt. 1 was at least formulaic and I can see why fans of this band might have enjoyed that album but with
Elements Pt. 2 we have a band that is just coasting it, not really sounding inspired and frankly that is just a disservice to their fans. Once again we are treated to the speedy melodic tunes like “I Walk To My Own Song”, “I’m Still Alive” and “Know the Difference” but the rest is filled with the crappy mid-tempo power ballads like “Liberty” and “Seasons of Faith’s Perfection”, the sappy with “Luminous” and the wannabe epics “Awaken the Giant” and “Alpha & Omega”. Wait? Doesn’t that sound like every other
Stratovarius album?
At least albums like
Visions and
Episode had more creativity, originality and speed and not so much whining. The band’s self-imposed hiatus prior to the release of these 2 albums did not seem to help them one bit and it looks now like they are going downhill having reached the top a few albums ago.
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Stratovarius Official Website
