Preamble

It seems that Timo Tolkki is putting out albums faster than I can listen to them, not long ago I reviewed his last project under the name “Revolution Renaissance” and now he’s back with a brand new band, one that contains more notable names than RR. The new band – named Symfonia – features Andre Matos (ex-Angra) on vocals, and Uli Kusch (ex-Helloween) on drums. With a super group on his hand, can Timo actually go wrong?

Review

The album starts off with the fast opener Fields of Avalon which feels pretty reminiscent of Andre Matos former band Angra. The first impression was that the album is more of a traditional power metal album and the impression holds through throughout most of the album. There are some really great melodies combined with lots of solid riffs.

However, the classic problem of Timo Tolkki is still there. A lot of the songs feel like they’ve been lifted from older songs.  For example Forevermore sounds a lot like Revolution Renaissance’s Heroes. Or Rhapsody in Black sounds a lot like the melody to KISS’ I Was Made For Loving You. It’s a really minor annoyance, but it’s really weird hearing melodies that you’ve heard a few years ago.

Some of my favourite tracks on the album are Forevermore, Fields of Avalon, and Santiago. All these are some of the faster songs which brings me to my next point. The ballads on this album are complete garbage, which I end up skipping most of the time. The title track In Paradisum takes about 2 minutes to actually “start” and the verses are pretty good but then they are ruined by the horrible drawn out chorus. I understand that Timo is trying to be “epic” but he is failing. The choir singing gets really repetitive after the intro, so using it as the chorus as well is just over kill.

The Bottom Line

Overall, it is a pretty solid album with a few stinkers on it. Timo has really outdone himself on some of these tracks, even though some of them feel like rehashes of older material. But if the old material was good, why not use it? I look forward to see how this bands future will turn out, they certainly had a great debut.