?Classics? of power metal #11: AVANTASIA - The Scarecrow (2008), early and late impressions and review
Since I've done Avantasia before, I ended up forgoing the usual two-posts thing. So, this'll be it.
When does The Scarecrow generate excitement for a listener of my particular tastes. Pretty much from minute one. The moment "Twisted Mind" hit, I was grinning. Yeah, this is what I came for Da-da-da-daDAH! The main riff is positively groovy, sounds heavy, sounds electronic. Instantly memorable. Speaking of memorable, Roy Khan's unmistakable vocals immediately set the mood to go to the slightly darker side of power metal, sticking to his great low range to let Tobias handle the high stuff in a way that quickly turns up the intensity higher than you get with Kamelot. So I was intrigued pretty early.
Now, when does that buzz fade? It was a little later each time. On the first listen it was at the chorus of that song. My mind started wandering early. The record seemed more full of downtuned meanderings than hooks, with the only instantly memorable songs being "Another Angel Down" and "Lost In Space" - those were self-evidently great from the start, more on that later. The overall sound was appealing, though. Avantasia songs just have to sound good at first, and then the hooks will come out to play; it was that way with the Metal Opera duology and it's that way here for me. By second listen "Twisted Mind" was working and most of the other songs followed. So, on second listen, my unbridled excitement about the record lasted until the middle of "The Scarecrow," as the band makes the always high-risk choice of putting a mostly mid-tempo eleven-minute track second. By third listen, that one had won me over, and by that point pretty much every single song was landing, hard. On the whole, pretty similar trajectory to my clicking with the other Avantasia records I've heard. They always sounded good and I liked the idea of them, I listened a few times, I ended up coming away as a (mostly) unabashed fan.
The thing that seems weird to me is that just by coincidence, my first few listens to The Scarecrow happened around the same time as my first spins of this year's new Insania record. I kind of had a thesis in mind wherein what I was expecting from The Scarecrow, I was instead getting from The Great Apocalypse - bread and butter power metal with light prog ambitions, prioritizing skill and understanding of the form over originality. Now I'm struggling to understand why I wasn't hearing the same thing right away in The Scarecrow too. Although Tobi has a different backing band this time, this is absolutely vintage power metal of the German school that sounds more similar to previous Avantasia work than different - the guitar work acrobatic, the choruses in the mixed vocal ranges amongst which any self-respecting Helloween worshipping act will roam, just enough affection for hair metal and Eurovision to keep things in the pop-metal sphere... Maybe the down-tuning might have been a mild surprise in 2008, or the use of dance beats might have. But nah. Honestly, even in 2008, the world already contained Helloween's turn-of-the-millennium work, Kamelot and the entire Finnish-derived wing of what I've dubbed "groove-oriented symphonic EUPM," etc, etc. So, yeah, The Scarecrow is in fact exactly the follow-up to The Metal Opera(s) that I was expecting and hoping for from Avantasia, but took a while to process that for whatever reason.
The biggest barriers getting into an Avantasia are the same they've always been with me and power metal as a whole - the stuff that too overtly reminds me of a particular sound I don't care for that I shorthand as "the '80s" is always a barrier to cross. I just don't care for the particular type of "whoa, yeah" ejaculations that we get from both Tobi and Jørn on "The Scarecrow." I really, really, really don't care for the "no, oh, whoa" bullshit on "Cry Just A Little More" and for that song in general; it so closely imitates the hair-metal ballads that it's either copying or lampooning,* and I have no use for that.
Other than that, I've got mostly good things to say. Particularly delightful elements include the way "The Sacrecrow" is built around that jaunty violin -> guitar figure (ye gods, do I l still love that trick) paired with a moody gruff verse. As I did last time I covered Avantasia, I need to praise their transitions; the hook of "for the crow to fly away" dropping back into the main riff is, well, the epitome of what they do so well. As is the flip from the "I'm a stranger" bridge to the "fallen angel, waiting for the prey" closing melody that reframes the "twisted mind" phrase and then gets passed between the singers and then builds in intensity as the song races towards a big finish. Despite my usual antipathy for long instrumental passages, here I'm liking how the moody parts and even the big guitar solo fit into the bigger piece. Just a really tightly composed song that's still revealing new pockets of earworms with each listen.
Now, when does that buzz fade? It was a little later each time. On the first listen it was at the chorus of that song. My mind started wandering early. The record seemed more full of downtuned meanderings than hooks, with the only instantly memorable songs being "Another Angel Down" and "Lost In Space" - those were self-evidently great from the start, more on that later. The overall sound was appealing, though. Avantasia songs just have to sound good at first, and then the hooks will come out to play; it was that way with the Metal Opera duology and it's that way here for me. By second listen "Twisted Mind" was working and most of the other songs followed. So, on second listen, my unbridled excitement about the record lasted until the middle of "The Scarecrow," as the band makes the always high-risk choice of putting a mostly mid-tempo eleven-minute track second. By third listen, that one had won me over, and by that point pretty much every single song was landing, hard. On the whole, pretty similar trajectory to my clicking with the other Avantasia records I've heard. They always sounded good and I liked the idea of them, I listened a few times, I ended up coming away as a (mostly) unabashed fan.
The thing that seems weird to me is that just by coincidence, my first few listens to The Scarecrow happened around the same time as my first spins of this year's new Insania record. I kind of had a thesis in mind wherein what I was expecting from The Scarecrow, I was instead getting from The Great Apocalypse - bread and butter power metal with light prog ambitions, prioritizing skill and understanding of the form over originality. Now I'm struggling to understand why I wasn't hearing the same thing right away in The Scarecrow too. Although Tobi has a different backing band this time, this is absolutely vintage power metal of the German school that sounds more similar to previous Avantasia work than different - the guitar work acrobatic, the choruses in the mixed vocal ranges amongst which any self-respecting Helloween worshipping act will roam, just enough affection for hair metal and Eurovision to keep things in the pop-metal sphere... Maybe the down-tuning might have been a mild surprise in 2008, or the use of dance beats might have. But nah. Honestly, even in 2008, the world already contained Helloween's turn-of-the-millennium work, Kamelot and the entire Finnish-derived wing of what I've dubbed "groove-oriented symphonic EUPM," etc, etc. So, yeah, The Scarecrow is in fact exactly the follow-up to The Metal Opera(s) that I was expecting and hoping for from Avantasia, but took a while to process that for whatever reason.
The biggest barriers getting into an Avantasia are the same they've always been with me and power metal as a whole - the stuff that too overtly reminds me of a particular sound I don't care for that I shorthand as "the '80s" is always a barrier to cross. I just don't care for the particular type of "whoa, yeah" ejaculations that we get from both Tobi and Jørn on "The Scarecrow." I really, really, really don't care for the "no, oh, whoa" bullshit on "Cry Just A Little More" and for that song in general; it so closely imitates the hair-metal ballads that it's either copying or lampooning,* and I have no use for that.
Other than that, I've got mostly good things to say. Particularly delightful elements include the way "The Sacrecrow" is built around that jaunty violin -> guitar figure (ye gods, do I l still love that trick) paired with a moody gruff verse. As I did last time I covered Avantasia, I need to praise their transitions; the hook of "for the crow to fly away" dropping back into the main riff is, well, the epitome of what they do so well. As is the flip from the "I'm a stranger" bridge to the "fallen angel, waiting for the prey" closing melody that reframes the "twisted mind" phrase and then gets passed between the singers and then builds in intensity as the song races towards a big finish. Despite my usual antipathy for long instrumental passages, here I'm liking how the moody parts and even the big guitar solo fit into the bigger piece. Just a really tightly composed song that's still revealing new pockets of earworms with each listen.
"Shelter From The Rain" was another relatively early standout. Here's a straight ahead banger that, ironically enough given who its main featured guest singer and guest guitarist are, is composed very much like a Helloween song from the Deris/Grapow era, right down to building the title phrase around the word "rain." Sounds good enough that I don't even care that it has the gall to rhyme "fire" with "desire."** "Another Angel Down..." well, that one ought to be as cheesy as the cheesy moments I noted above what with its pulsating area-rock ready sound. Somehow it's not. The hooks are too damn hooky, and yet again, those transitions make the whole thing sing, especially the way the chorus gets dissonant and introduces a different pulsating counterpoint to the first pulsating part. It's the particular type of cheese I don't mind, I suppose. The lyrics demand a song that strikes a note of defiance that's simultaneously self-pitying and triumphant, and damned if it doesn't create that exact mood. I get why some would consider the sound dated, and it's because part of my mind totally wants to characterize "Another Angel Down," "Devil In The Belfry," "I Don't Believe In Your Love," and others that way. AAD is good enough to overcome that.
The elephant in the room here is of course that there's a full-on October 31-ready spooky rock song that Tobias actually got motherfucking Alice Cooper to sing on. What else can you say? Tobi may be the loser in a game of love or whatever the album's narrator is whining about, but he's clearly the winner of the "get any damn guest you want on your musical project" game. I like "The Toy Master" a lot, and not just for the gothy vibe. Minor chords perfectly placed, wah-wah flourishes, big chant-along bridge melding so beautifully into the final chorus. The track does its job in that it stands out as its own thing whilst fitting in completely with Avantasia's whole thing.
To reiterate my main point, such that it is... "feeling like lost in spaaaaaace..." Damn. This is what a perfect minor chord in a vocal melody can do. So good. I don't know why being a metal listener who loves a vocal hook wasn't a perfect "in" into power metal for me, rather than this tortuous path. Well, whatever, if it were all as good for me as "Lost In Space" is, I'd have become a slavering devotee of the subgenre many years ago and this would be a very different set of blog posts.
I should also highlight the use of key changes, a key pop music skill that elevates both "Another Angel Down" and the impossibly catchy "Lost In Space." I kinda feel all of my attempts to dissect Avantasia's hookiest songs ends up breaking down to "oooh, that's really catchy." For me, the execution is at a level that makes the style work for me where nine out of ten bands would not be able to do the same thing with the same elements. I guess quality songwriting is the thing that separates one poppy metal song from another. These are the blinding insights you read this blog for!
The tracks that're less straightforward metal tend to be smartly composed too. "Carry Me Over," a rare song sans guest vocalists, manages to sound somewhere between post-grunge and dance-pop during the verses, so it makes sure to throw in a big repetitious chorus to make sure we don't forget what we're listening to. Even if I find the song a little dumber, I can't help but call the choice inspired. I'm not toally enamored with "What Kind Of Love" but I acknowledge that it displays a similarly clever composition. Amanda is seemingly on the cusp of bursting into the chorus of "What's Love Got To Do With It" and then she drops pitch back into earthy mode rather than diva mode at the last possible second, so that the tune can reveal itself as not a love song.***
Not sure the best place to talk about the various guest vocalists, because for the most part Tobias Sammet remains the dominant voice of Avantasia literally and figuratively throughout, so all the guests remain a more minor part of the opera than you'd think. Briefly, though... Roy is used very well as noted above. This was my first exposure to Jørn Lande - yeah, yeah, I know that I'll need to listen to Masterplan at some point given my appreciation of Roland Grapow's work with Helloween. It's on the big list o' stuff. Anyway, back to Jørn, I gotta say, I'm not totally impressed. He would apparently go on to be Tobias's most frequent vocal collaborator over the years, and, well, he's totally fine, but he does mostly the same things Tobi does except whilst constantly exuding a kind of theatricality that would fit better on The Metal Opera Pt II than it does on The Scarecrow. Yet he features on some of the record's best songs. So maybe he'll be an acquired taste too. There's way less Michael Kiske on this record than I'd have expected, but he does his thing as usual. Bob Catley, who I also don't know outside Avantasia, is a great contrast to the screamier singers on "Shelter From The Rain;" I'm less fond of his approach to "Cry Just A Little." Amanda Somerville I know from a few Kamelot songs, but her thing seems to be being the pop singer turned power-metal whisperer; she's great when in the background helping Tobi's voice pop more like at the end of "Lost In Space." Oliver Hartmann, who was one of the standouts of Avantasia's previous project, is just kinda there on this one.
Not sure the best place to talk about the various guest vocalists, because for the most part Tobias Sammet remains the dominant voice of Avantasia literally and figuratively throughout, so all the guests remain a more minor part of the opera than you'd think. Briefly, though... Roy is used very well as noted above. This was my first exposure to Jørn Lande - yeah, yeah, I know that I'll need to listen to Masterplan at some point given my appreciation of Roland Grapow's work with Helloween. It's on the big list o' stuff. Anyway, back to Jørn, I gotta say, I'm not totally impressed. He would apparently go on to be Tobias's most frequent vocal collaborator over the years, and, well, he's totally fine, but he does mostly the same things Tobi does except whilst constantly exuding a kind of theatricality that would fit better on The Metal Opera Pt II than it does on The Scarecrow. Yet he features on some of the record's best songs. So maybe he'll be an acquired taste too. There's way less Michael Kiske on this record than I'd have expected, but he does his thing as usual. Bob Catley, who I also don't know outside Avantasia, is a great contrast to the screamier singers on "Shelter From The Rain;" I'm less fond of his approach to "Cry Just A Little." Amanda Somerville I know from a few Kamelot songs, but her thing seems to be being the pop singer turned power-metal whisperer; she's great when in the background helping Tobi's voice pop more like at the end of "Lost In Space." Oliver Hartmann, who was one of the standouts of Avantasia's previous project, is just kinda there on this one.
The elephant in the room here is of course that there's a full-on October 31-ready spooky rock song that Tobias actually got motherfucking Alice Cooper to sing on. What else can you say? Tobi may be the loser in a game of love or whatever the album's narrator is whining about, but he's clearly the winner of the "get any damn guest you want on your musical project" game. I like "The Toy Master" a lot, and not just for the gothy vibe. Minor chords perfectly placed, wah-wah flourishes, big chant-along bridge melding so beautifully into the final chorus. The track does its job in that it stands out as its own thing whilst fitting in completely with Avantasia's whole thing.
Stray thoughts:
Certain lyrical links tie the tracks together (one character declares himself to be the master of a game that another character lost a few tracks earlier, that sort of thing), as does intermittent use of bell-sounding percussion, but there's not really much coherent narrative. The Scarecrow seems to focus more on the different voices speaking to the main character, which I now believe to be Avantasia's basic approach to storytelling, based on a sample size of three. On the whole, I think The Scarecrow benefits from being the sort of concept album whose concept is just a loose frame to hang cool songs on.
I haven't digested everything on the Lost In Space EPs, but besides supporting my suspicion that the track of the same name stands alone separate from (and possibly was written separately from) the rest of The Scarecrow, the different takes on "Lost In Space," the song, are interesting. Just knowing it had an acoustic version, and a version with 30% more Eurodance, knowing that they experimented with a bigger part for Amanda and also with trading most of the Amanda for a dusting of Michael, and so on, makes it a little more clear all the effort that goes into making a song sound effortless.
Favorite Track: "Lost In Space"
Runner Up: "The Toy Master"
Least Favorite Track: "Cry Just A Little"
Rating: 4.5/5
Things I learned about power metal
- I'll probably always have an initial recoil from certain audio elements.
- Whether or not I read something as cheesy in a bothersome way is so dependent on whether or not it uses the right chords and the right transitions. If those are on point, it's going to sound good to me, first and foremost.
Will I come back to Avantasia?
I think I've said everything I need to say about them at this point, so probably not for blogging purposes. But for personal listening? Absolutely, 100%.
Next: Initial thoughts on Ancient Bards' The Alliance Of The Kings, whenever I get around to it!
*The song only works at all if we take the Scarecrow as an unreliable narrator, and assume that his proclamations of love are supposed to come off as ridiculously overwrought. Even if that was the intention - and I do think that it was, although I'm not even 100% certain of that - it doesn't mean I have to like listening to that chorus.
**It could be worse. A chorus could do straight up repetitions such that it's basically trying to rhyme "roses" with "roses"... oh, wait, shit.
***At least one power metal love interest is smart enough to stay the fuck away from a character who describes himself as "a broken man in need of mother-love."
Comments
Post a Comment