Altaria - Divine Invitation
Metal Heaven - 00034 - May 25, 2007
By Michael Koger
As power metal, or any genre for that matter, gains popularity it becomes increasingly difficult for a band to stand out above the rest of its peers. This seems to be the case for
Altaria, a power metal band from Finland. They formed in 2000 and have already had four different vocalists. Their latest album,
Divine Invitation, is a compilation of various tracks off of their first two cds,
Invitation and
Divinity. These cds have been out of print for some time, and this album serves as a "Best of..." for them. With a revolving door of vocalists and a couple of guitarists, it's been tough for
Altaria to keep their heads above the water.
The first ten tracks are mixed and matched from the
Invitation and
Divinity albums. The music is consistent in spite of having two almost completely different lineups on the albums (excluding the bassist and drummer who were the founding members and have stayed since the founding). Jouni Nikula lends his vocals for the
Invitation album, and Taage Laiho sings on the
Divinity album. Of the two singers, Laiho is probably the better of the two. Nikula at times sounds tone deaf, and his attempts at the signature power metal falsetto fall flat. However, he does harmonize with himself rather well during choruses. Tracks 11 and 12 are new tracks featuring vocalist Marco Luponero. These new songs fit right in with the band's back catalogue. Even though Luponero sounds like the most mature vocalist
Altaria has had, he seems to be lacking emotion and feeling in his singing from time to time. Tracks 13, 14 and 15 are from
Altaria's 2001 demo,
Sleeping Visions, with their original singer, Johan Mattjus. Mattjus comes off as sounding like a drunken
Ronnie James Dio, unable to articulate himself clearly from time to time. These tracks, with the exclusion of 'Kingdom of the Night', are featured both on the
Invitation album and the
Divine Invitation album. Tracks 16-19 are demo versions of four songs from the
Feed the Fire demo. These songs also appear on the
Invitation and
Divine Invitation albums.
I never understood the purpose (besides promoting sales) of putting demo tracks on a cd. Unless if the tracks sound completely different structurally, it's just repetitive, and they often sound worse than the finalized master tracks. Four of the tracks on the cd appear twice. That's eight tracks, and the album is only 19 tracks, so almost half of the album is repeated. The music is performed well, and a good majority of the songs are played at a mid tempo pace. Epic guitars and keyboards, pounding drums, and the occasional bass all add up to a generic power metal sound. The four different vocalists featured on
Divine Invitation all sound decent from time to time, but they are all ultimately lackluster. Unless if you're a power metal completist, this album is worth skipping over.
Official Altaria Website
Official Metal Heaven Records Website
