Metal Reviews

I would almost argue that this is the best album of all-time and would give it at least 98/100 in score. Lost in Space and Carry me over are definately not ballads, c'moon they are way heavier and more rocking than most tunes classified as rock on radio or mtv, calling them ballads is just nonsense. Instead they are great rock tunes! The two ballads here do nothing special for me, but neither did the ballads on Meta Operas. This is no doubt the best Avantasia album ever released and I will buy it the first day it hit the shelfs for sure.

Wow. Did we listen to the same album? I though most of the songs were pretty average, nothing like the first Avantasia where all of the songs were killer. I'll have to give it a few more listens I guess.

The epic title track "The Scarecrow" starts with a surprising, very pleasant and interesting intro. We have Irish style violin and some kind of bombastic tribal drumming. Think of Riverdance. But as soon as Tobias Sammet opens his mouth, the promising song falls into the ooze of mediocrity. Artificial respiration arrives at time 2:38 when another super immortal divine singer (in addition to Khan, not to Tobias, that is) Jørn Lande takes the hold of control strings. The instrumental part at time 4:15-6:40 is good old epic, soundtrack fashion Avantasia, which I would have wanted to hear on this album a lot, lot more. Sucky guitar solo followed by Tobias' rather annoying voice drops the listener back to the ground. The end of the song is fortunately saved by the good refrain sung by Jørn Lande again.

"Shelter from the Rain". It is one of the rare power metal songs on the album featuring The Gods of Power Metal Kai Hansen and Henjo Richter on lead guitar and Michael Kiske on lead vocals. "Shelter from the Rain" could be straight from Keeper of the Seven Keys Part II, which is the only way I want my power metal to be served. I only wish Kiske and Bob Catley (Magnum) would have sung this song as a duet.

"Carry Me Over" is a tired, boring, million times heard before ultra-cheesy ballad with no guest singers on board. It has nothing to do with metal and surely must be considered as a crime towards metal loving headbangers. .

"What Kind of Love" is also a ballad, but this time a much better one, with a lot more interesting and nicer melody. And thankfully this time we have Amanda Somerville on lead vocals and Michael Kiske somewhere there on the background as well. As you probably have figured out by now, I'm not the world's biggest fan of Sammet's singing voice. And two ballads in a row... unprecedentedly outrageous.

Fortunately things get back on track with the song "Another Angel Down". It is one of the highlights of the album and not least because of its killer melody and - once again - Jørn Lande, the fourth best metal singer of all time. The guitar solo by Henjo Richter must also not be bypassed without a mention, since it rules. It rules! I don't have a booklet, so there is a possibility that Sascha Paeth contributes to the solos as well. We will find out as soon as the album is out.

"The Toy Master". Isn't that a killer song! The lead vocals are sung almost completely by the metal grandfather Vincent Damon Furnier aka Alice Cooper and the vocal melody line is one of the best Sammet has ever written. The first three and a half minutes of the song are extremely pleasant mid-tempo dark colored heavy metal. But then at time 3:35 the song takes a complete turn into a fast Painkiller era Judas Priest. Well done, Tobias, well done.

The second - and the last - power metal song of the album, "Devil in the Belfry" completes the second killer trilogy.

"Cry Just a Little" is yet again one of those totally unnecessary ballads, that should be forbidden by a law. The only good thing in this song are the vocals by Bob Catley.

"I Don't Believe in Your Love" is an average melodic metal song sung by one of my favourite singers, ex-At Vance lead vocalist Oliver Hartmann, as a duet with Sammet, of course. This is the best of the bad songs of the album or the worse of the good songs of the album, depending on how you wanna put it.

The closing song and the hit single of the album, "Lost in Space" is a great, great song, but suffers already a bit from being over-played in my household during the last two months.

And you'd almost be retarded. It's a solid album, but about a hundred light years away from being an all-time great.

I was listening to some of the new album and its pretty good, Im gonna buy it. My biggest problem is the fact that its under the name Avantasia, things like that normally don't bother me, but I think he should have left it alone and just did a new side project.

My initial reaction was that it kicked ass but after hearing The Scarecrow and then listening to The Seven Angels I realized what once was. This album pales greatly to the first 2 albums.

Huh? I assume you're kidding.

So I loved the first Avantasia, loved the second but less, and liked Rocket Ride, but less than Hellfire Club. Should I get this and/or bother with the EPs?

Do you listen to many cds? that's a huge call best album of all time. It must be an amazing album and a massive improvement on the mixed quality of the eps.

I totally agree with you on both issues and I like this album even more than Metal Opera part 1. Most of the songs on the eps were covers, even though very good ones, I would suggest to buy both. However, if you only got limited money to put on cds then go for this amazing album instead of the two eps.

The EPs are bit dodgy. One EP combining the best songs from the two would have been better (but, of course, accumulated less coin).

So it's the album, with the EPs if they're cheap. Ta, fellas.

The EPs cost 10.50€ each here in Finland which is more than Iron Maiden's newest studio album! I have no idea how these could have done well in the charts with this terrible price (it hit top10 in many european countries), if it would have sold for 3-4€ as the usual eps it might have been a #1 hit around europe...

The Eps cost me $22.00 each and I get a discount . I didn't bother checking the price as I thought they would be cheaper. Total ripoff when you compare that I got latest Nightwish(2 disc) and other new cds for similar price. Next time I'll wait for the complete album.
Should have been one mini album without the two extra versions of the title track and the short instrumental then it's much better value.

I am in pain hearing this pricing. Can't you download from Itunes or Amazon? Ought to be cheaper and you don't have to get all 700 versions of Lost in Space that way....I understand wanting to get the quality of a CD, but for the sake of EPs....just a thought.

Suppose it comes down to whether eps are worth buying and given past experience I'd say no. Last one I really enjoyed was Edguy's King of fools that had some fun songs on it. Remember getting one of Masterplan's and liking it only to find most of the songs on the new cd also.

I got my EPs for less than $5 each, so I suppose it's all in where you find them. I know Tobi expects them to be the price of a single each.

[quote="derncare"]I got my EPs for less than $5 each, so I suppose it's all in where you find them.

It also depends where you live and the dollar value that's where we cop it here.

So I downloaded the album two days ago. I haven't even gotten through it completely yet. I've gotten up to What kind of love, and then stopped. Because i'm now inlove with that song.

"The album is a walking orgasm" - Brave Words Bloody Knuckles
"CD of the month" - Break Out Magazine
"A completely convincing masterpiece" - 9/10 points - Rock Hard
"The Scarecrow' is a musical treasure..." - Lords of Metal
"Lukewarm, overblown, Power Metal kitsch" - Powermetal
"The best of all Avantasia albums so far!" - 7/7 - Metal Hammer

I am however a bit suprised hat rock hard only gave this masterpiece 9/10 since if this album does not deserve 10/10 then no album from last year would have either deserved that. The singles were charttoppers so let's hope this will be the big breakthrough for powermetal around europe. Nightwish and Blind Guardian have topped several european charts so let's hope Tobi will also do it, since he'd sure deserve it!

Does anyone else's copy of the CD have "The Scarecrow - The DVD" printed on it? I thought there had been a packaging error and I'd been given the bonus DVD instead of the CD, but it looks like a printing error.