Avantasia – Moonglow
7/10
In my opinion Tobias Sammet is a genius and one of the most hard working musicians in the music business. He started a band called Edguy in the early 90’s and later Avantasia took form as a solo project. Avantasia is back with a new abum and the solo project is, to be honest of more concern than Edguy nowadays. Once again Tobias invited guest musicians and the result is sometimes good, sometimes really good and believe me when I say that it’s on a few tracks is pure brilliance. When Candice Night helps Tobi out in the title track it’s not only a great song but yet also one of the best songs that we will hear on an abum this year. Here we talk brilliance in its purest form.
“Ghost In The Moon” is the opener and it’s almost ten minutes long. “The Raven Child” is the other long song on the album and here we talk over eleven minutes which doesn’t hold my interest up all the way as the masterpiece “The Pharaoh” did back in 2001 on the Edguy-album “Mandrake”. I like the fact that Tobias Sammet once again have put together an album that sounds Avantasia but it also sounds extremely fresh. You can find great choruses in songs like “Book Of Shallow” and “Moonglow”. You have some Edguy feeling in “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn” and there’s also a great cover which concludes the album. The song is called “Maniac” and was originally on the “Flashdance”-soundtrack back in 1981, performed by Michael Sembello.
2018 was a pretty godd year when it comes to hard rock and Heavy Metal and in my opinion 2019 have started in a decent way to. Avantasia is definitely one of the biggest releases this year and to sum it up Tobias have managed once again to make an album that will make the fans happy. If they can perform the new material live we will be able to see in early may when Avantasia is coming back to Sweden for one show in Stockholm. It will be a happy night for sure because the genius never do anything to make his audience disappointed.
Band: Avantasia
Title: Moonglow
Label: Nuclear Blast
Date of release: 15/2-19
Playing Time: 66,43
Rate: 7/10
Stand out track: Moonglow