Dreamer Deceiver is my #2 Priest song. It's glorious.
Which one is #1?
Amazing album. Major upgrade from Rocka Rolla
Great album and choice
Thank you guys, great to see some love for this Priest record. I thought it was underrated a bit, but apparently it's not.
As I promised, we keep skimming through the updates right here. Remember how I told you
how my kin is different in some ways there will be at least one band with three albums on the list? Well, here it comes, and instead of hard-rockish appearance in #32 and #31, this one is a pure power metal album, sheer brilliance right here. Yes, I'm a big fan of Avantasia. No, Sacul, I don't care they're cheese in a nutshell. Here we go.
#25The Metal OperaAvantasiaGenre: power metal2001 And yet another repeat comes. This is the third and last time Avantasia appears in the list, for their debut album is an absolute masterpiece and the best thing they’ve ever created, thus it simply can’t be left out of this list. This album is classic conceptual power metal to the bone: fast, driving, epic and pretentious as hell, exactly how I like it. This is nothing like The Scarecrow or The Mystery of Time, even more mindblowing instead. I wonder, could Tobias imagine how great this thing will turn out to be when he started writing it? Because I’m looking at the remaining albums in my list and there are only four or five pure power metal records left higher than this one, so it’s basically a huge, outstanding achievement in the genre.
The lineup for The Metal Opera (note that I’m only talking about Part One here) was drastically different from post-2008 Avantasia albums. The singers cast included
Tobias Sammet himself as the main protagonist;
Michael Kiske, who was credited as Ernie in the booklet because he claimed he doesn’t sing metal anymore and didn’t want people to know he appears on this album (nice try, Michael);
David DeFeis with his very random yet fitting vocal delivery; also there were
Kai Hansen,
Andre Matos,
Oliver Hartmann,
Rob Rock,
Ralf Zdiarstek and
Sharon den Adel. Tobias later admitted he thought he wouldn’t be able to find a capable female singer so he reduced Anna’s (the only female character in the story) parts to a minimum and regretted it immediately when he heard Sharon singing them. Oh, and also there is
Timo Tolkki who did a spoken part on the last track, but since he nearly ripped off the name and the logo of the band with his Avalon (the music is total shit, don’t try it), I don’t even know why I mentioned him here. So, those were the singers, and the other cast were
Henjo Richter on guitars,
Markus Grosskopf on bass,
Alex Holzwarth on drums, and a few guest musicians I’m too lazy to look about because this is already taking too long to write.
So well, how does this album sounds? There are quite a few songs with Tobias and Michael, as they are the main characters, so if you ever heard each one of them singing, you probably can imagine; lots of high notes, double bass and wonderful vocal melodies overall, with awesome guitar solos by Henjo. Basically the very start of
Reach Out for the Light should give you an idea. It’s fascinating how every time they play it live and Michael appears with this first high note the crowd goes nuts. Well, including me.
Also, there is that Michael’s part in the end of
Farewell, and there is actually a story behind it; when Tobias asked him to sing on the album, Kiske asked not to make him sing the extreme high-pitched vocal passages in return. So when Tobi was recording the guide vocals for Farewell for him he just shrieked and squealed those last few phrases as high as he could, intending it to be a joke; and he was quite astounded when that was exactly what Michael sung and sent him back.
Alright, now I’m just skimming through all those songs, and I wanted to say that despite two best Avantasia songs aren’t on this album, I’m struggling to find anything that climactic as this epic conclusion in
The Tower starting after the spoken part with
“I realize…”. No other moment from the whole Avantasia material can compare with that, in my opinion. Wrapping this one up, I would add there are a lot of great albums from Avantasia (the only one I think is average is Angel of Babylon); a few masterpieces even, but if I had to pick one, ultimately best Avantasia album (and I kinda have to do it in this very list), it would be The Metal Opera. It’s a must have for any power metal fan.
Disclaimer: for the most satisfying experience you should listen to the whole album
Favourite tracks:
Prelude + Reach Out for the Light,
Serpents in Paradise,
Farewell,
Sign of the Cross,
The TowerAnd if you really like it, you may as well buy the gold edition, a hardback book with both the first and the second part of the opera. There are lyrics in the booklet, Tobias’ thoughts about the songs and the whole plot and interview with Tobi as of 2008 where he talks about all the vocalists participated and other things.
It’s funny how I own all the studio Avantasia albums and they’re all not jewel case packed, haha. And since I’m a fan of digipacks,
this makes me happy.