10. Scarecrow / Avantasia [2008]I'm not going to cheat and do the whole 3-album 'Scarecrow Saga', but just the opening album. Some may argue this is not a proper concept album. But from the booklet of The Scarecrow, Tobias offers the following introduction to the storyline “The Scarecrow is a tragic story of a lonesome creature, emotionally isolated from his environment and suffering from a distorted sensory perception. His feelings for the love of his life unrequited, he sets off on a journey exploring the left-hand path, striving for inner peace, sloughing his way to approval and eventually facing temptation at the inner depths of the human soul.” Sounds like a legit concept album to me.
The Scarecrow is packed with 11 beastly tracks, and doesn’t disappoint for a single, solitary second. With legendary voices of Khan, Lande, Kiske, Somerville, Cooper*, and Catley adding contributions, along with Kai Hansen and Henjo Richter laying down so mean solos, there is a lot of firepower on display here.
The follow up albums to the trilogy are a little more hit and miss, so this one comes in as a standalone entry to start the Top 10.
* It was actually the DTF member Scard that first mentioned Avantasia to me, at a meetup before DTF’s ADTOE show in Toronto in Oct '12. I even wrote the name of the band down to check them out. Alas, I completely forgot. Thankfully, a few weeks later, Nick rolled them on his weekly WPaPU radio show (Toy Master specifically), and I thought ‘wow, these guys sound like Alice Cooper, but way proggier!’.
Fave Song -
The Scarecrow... perfection