Listening to the album as a whole makes for a better experience, I have to say, it's slowly growing on me.
I'm still afraid my personal Avantasia tastes have peaked with Ghostlights and that no new effort will top it. I have to say, I kinda believe Tobi's hype - yeah, he has a huge ego and acts larger than life when he talks about his music but his passion is genuine, when he said that he had all the freedom and time he had to make his ultimate masterpiece, I kinda believed him. If he says over and over that this is his most personal album where he did everything the way he wanted with the time he wanted, I expected a bit more than "just another (good) Avantasia album".
Let the Storm Descend Upon You sounds very inspired, The Great Mystery sound very passionate and inspired, just to name two utter masterpieces. He already wrote those songs so no need to copy them, but I was expecting some truly "wow!!!!" songs. This is probably the album where the guests don't feel integrated into the album, but just a checklist. Power metal anthemic song, get Kiske. Melodic song, get Floor. AOR song, get Catley. Only in the final epic song there's more than a singer.... where is the interplay of voices like in Book of Shallows? where are the cool little things like Jorn having a bridge in Ghostlights to add a bit of variety to the song?
Also, some songs feel like they end too suddenly (like I Tame the Storm) or they could have had the chorus repeated twice. Take Welcome to the Shadows, the ultra Burtonian opener, after such a long atmospheric intro, the chorus comes and then stops immediately? that chorus and Kill the Pain Away could have been a bit longer. Then again, it's always better to keep it short. than going the "Don't you think I'm a saviour" route, but it felt weird to have such bombastic choruses cut off way too soon.
All in all, the songs are great and solid. Paper Plane is probably the most sappy and forgettable one, especially considering how awesome is the other ballad, Misplaced Among the Angels. I Tame the Storm is nice but pales confronted with the other Jorn songs. Even the Tate song is no Seduction of Decay.
I'm sure I'll warm up more to the album in the next days, and it's unfair to Tobi to judge him against his insanely high standards he himself set with many Avantasia masterpieces, but if the best he has to offer with all the time and creativity he needed (his words, over and over!) is "just another good Avantasia album", maybe it's better to take a pause for a while and get new singers and new perspectives. Even the awesome The Raven Child, on the previous album, was relying on the Scarecrow trick of a fast final section sung by Jorn, there are only so many variations of power metal songs for Kiske, melodic songs for Catley and energetic songs for Lande left before getting a feeling of scraping the barrel....