Timo Tolkki's Avalon - The Land of New Hope

Timmo Tolkki has written and produce a new metal opera for Frontiers Records:



Featuring:

Russell Allen (Symphony X)
Sharon Den Adel (Within Temptation)
Alex Holzwarth (Rhapsody of Fire)
Jens Johansson (Stratovarius)
Tony Kakko (Sonata Arctica)
Michael Kiske (Helloween, Unisonic)
Rob Rock
Elize Ryd (Amaranthe)
Derek Sherninan (Dream Theater)

These are becoming a dime a dozen. I'll check it out though.

Called it. Damn, I'm good.

"Legendary mastermind who helped to shape up power metal..." Wow! Last time I checked bands like Metal Church and Omen used to play Power metal a good part of a decade prior to Tlokki joining Strato, not to mention that Strato's debut album "Fright Night" 1989 is the epitome of Helloween rip-off...

Don't get me wrong, I dig some of the early Strato albums, but to claim Tolkki deifned Power metal is just plain awkward...

stormspell wrote:

"Legendary mastermind who helped to shape up power metal..." Wow! Last time I checked bands like Metal Church and Omen used to play Power metal a good part of a decade prior to Tlokki joining Strato, not to mention that Strato's debut album "Fright Night" 1989 is the epitome of Helloween rip-off...

Don't get me wrong, I dig some of the early Strato albums, but to claim Tolkki deifned Power metal is just plain awkward...

Yeah, I like Stratovarius up the the two Elements albums (everything after is not bad but doesn't hold my attention) but I agree with you. However, with that line-up it is pretty much a given that I will get it.

Michael Kiske on a "project" album with numerous singers? Who would have thunk that?!

First he started a campaign to get people to back his new album on pledge drive. Then he starts another campaign for the Project Strato on pledge drive. Then he cancels both projects to do this project which was top secret until now, I guess and its just his usual thing.

I'm kind of getting tired of these "Metal Operas" because everyone seems to be doing them and its getting played out. I pledged for both of his projects and when they got canceled I was given the opportunity to keep my money going towards this new project which is what I did. Hopefully it will be good but I won't keep my hopes up. I was really more interested in the project strato since those first couple of Stratovarius albums are some of my favorites, and I was interested to see where that was going to go. Most likely Tolkki would have f*cked it up as usual. I'm still hoping on that project to get done. I guess I'll have to be happy with this one I just hope its good.

I'll wait to hear it until I judge it.

I was wondering about that Phoenix, I kept reading about his projects and then nothing.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.........

Ill check it out. I am interested in the Rob Rock track.

I'm interested in hearing this. I find Tolkki hit or miss, but when he gets it right, it's very enjoyable.

Does this guy write any good guitar riffs?

He has, but overall he is overrated and can only breathe the dust behind fellow "power metal" players like Michael Romeo, etc.

Although he is definitely better than the likes of John Schaffer

stormspell wrote:

"Legendary mastermind who helped to shape up power metal..." Wow! Last time I checked bands like Metal Church and Omen used to play Power metal a good part of a decade prior to Tlokki joining Strato, not to mention that Strato's debut album "Fright Night" 1989 is the epitome of Helloween rip-off...

Don't get me wrong, I dig some of the early Strato albums, but to claim Tolkki deifned Power metal is just plain awkward...

How do you get "defined" from "helped to shape up?"

It is true that that Stratovarius helped to shape up modern power metal. They were very influential in that scene and definitely helped to raise the genre a bit more into the mainstream. I don't think Helloween was that much "power metal" anymore in the mid 90's, but Stratovarius was one of the bands that brought modern power metal into the new millennium with quite a force.

The wording "helped to SHAPE UP" is exactly what Stratovarius did. You say Metal Church and Omen are power metal. Yeah, perhaps they are although I find Metal Church more of a hybrid of "traditional", speed and a hint of thrash metal. Quite like the Walls of Jericho era Helloween (which also is what Stratovarius' Fright Night is without the hint of thrash and minus the intensity of Walls of Jericho). If you listen to everything Stratovarius has made from Fourth Dimension onwards you will see that their genre is way different than Metal Church's. When Timo Kotipelto and Jörg Michaels were both in the band, they were changed completely into a band that plays power metal in a way the next generation from you knows it.

You could basically say that Stratovarius was one of the bands molding a new wave of power metal in the mid 90's. Surely there were older bands doing the same at the same time such as Gamma Ray (and perhaps even Heavens Gate although their style was was more of guitar driven speed than power) but if you think that Tolkki wasn't doing anything to shape up the genre, I have to say you are wrong. He didn't define it and no one is claiming that. Stratovarius was one of the pioneers of "the new wave" of power metal. The band has been around since 1982. Granted they didn't play speed or power metal until 1985 when Tolkki joined in and didn't even record their first full album until 1989 and Twilight Time was still quite much of Fright Night (Walls of Jericho) style of speed but you can hear the change coming in 1993 album Dreamspace with more of a change in direction in 1995's Fourth Dimension. Episode in 1996 and finally Visions in 1997 were albums that had finalized their new direction. Gamma Ray was doing the same but didn't go "fully" power but kept their speed metal side around. Then appeared all Hammerfalls and Rhapsodys who were riding in the power metal trend Stratovarius helped to create. Some of them went ahead into the symphonic power metal route and some didn't.

If you'd ask what Stratovarius did to shape up anything, I'd say they lessened the need for guitar riff driven playing from speed metal and gave more emphasis on melodies. Fast riffing went more into the background and guitar, vocal and keyboard melodies jumped into the front. They weren't exactly defining that type of music either but they were helping to shape it up.

Temple of Blood wrote:

Does this guy write any good guitar riffs?

Don't know about particularly great riffs, but he writes some really good melodies. Or at least wrote up to Episode or Visions. I don't much care for the post-Visions Stratovarius, but there are some good songs in those later albums too.

I don't quite remember much riffs from their songs but the melodies have stayed in my head quite a long time now.

Now to think of it, Halcyon Days in the newest album of Stratovarius has quite a good speedy/thrashy riff. Tolkki isn't in the band anymore so he hasn't got anything to do with that riff though.

Exaclty, "modern power metal" and "power metal" are two completely different beasts. The video boasted Tolki helped to shape "power metal" and that's what triggered my caustic response.

I really don't care if Tolkki shaped "modern power metal" or if it was Hammerfall, Labyrinth, Edguy, Rhapsody, Stratovarius, Angra, or [add your favorite modern power metal band here].

If you ask me, that credit should go to Helloween, Iron Maiden, and perhaps Dio, since about every band in that genre afterward tried to sound like them, and just kept adding keyboards and castrato vocals (and later operatic female divas).

Not sure how this guy can be a great metal songwriter if he isn't known for great riffs.

Perhaps he is not playing metal at all?

There are plenty of great Strato songs. Here's my favorite:

stormspell wrote:

Exaclty, "modern power metal" and "power metal" are two completely different beasts. The video boasted Tolki helped to shape "power metal" and that's what triggered my caustic response.

I really don't care if Tolkki shaped "modern power metal" or if it was Hammerfall, Labyrinth, Edguy, Rhapsody, Stratovarius, Angra, or [add your favorite modern power metal band here].

If you ask me, that credit should go to Helloween, Iron Maiden, and perhaps Dio, since about every band in that genre afterward tried to sound like them, and just kept adding keyboards and castrato vocals (and later operatic female divas).

To me, all of what you said is about shaping up power metal. It doesn't matter if you don't like what it ended up shaping into or if you think the difference is too big. All that matters is that this genre was called power metal worldwide. The word "modern" is there just to tell you the passing of time between these two types of power metal. If something becomes a modern version of something, it happens because it was shaped into that. And with Tolkki, he is said to have been helping to shape it, not that he shaped it by himself.

Temple of Blood wrote:

Not sure how this guy can be a great metal songwriter if he isn't known for great riffs.

Perhaps he is not playing metal at all?

Yeah, it depends on the definition. I remember my friend 15 years ago saying that Helloween, Iron Maiden and bands like that weren't metal. He only thought the heaviest death and thrash bands are metal, and the rest are some variation of rock.

I remember other people back in the day saying Stratovarius isn't real metal because it's too melodic. I couldn't understand that then and I can't understand that now. What comes to riffs in metal, I don't think writing memorable riffs is the defining factor.


Tolkki wrote good riffs, but what I meant is that he didn't write much riffs that could be defined as classics. Stratovarius has been more about different moods than pure guitar driven riffing. Besides, I recall Tolkki was always more known of his soloing than his riffs. Quite like Yngwie Malmsteen who I don't think has written much amazingly memorable riffs either but he is the master in melodies and fast melodic solos. Yngwie might be technically better guitarist than Tolkki, but I think Tolkki has always had a better sense of melody when compared to Yngwie.


Here are a couple of riffs by Tolkki I think are pretty good:

That's Future Shock from Stratovarius' debut album Fright Night (1989). It's the opening track. I think the main riff starting at 0:14 is a great heavy metal riff.


This is Father Time from their 1996 album Episode. I think it has good power metal riffing but nothing absolutely remarkable.

And the same goes to Speed of Light from the same album:



Some people like these and some people don't. There were massive amounts of people who absolutely loved this kind of stuff from mid90's onwards.

Eyesore wrote:

There are plenty of great Strato songs. Here's my favorite:

That was pretty good, yeah. I had never heard that before.

I wasn't going to reply to this thread anymore, but after listening to the Strato clips I was too amused not to notice the "Speed of Light" riff is basically identical to the "Future Shock." The dude obviously recycled his own riffs. IF it was his own riff to start with, because fast-forwarding to 1:18 the vocal line morphs so shamelessly into "Future World" by Helloween I almost chocked on my coffee.

I really need to revisit Strato albums one of these days. I had a good, albeit vague, overall impression from what I've heard before, but now I'm starting to doubt if it is relevant...

Yeah, it's very true that Tolkki has recycled quite a lot of his material and some of his songs sound really familiar with songs of another bands. Even the chorus of their song Rebel sounds like the chorus of Stryper's The Writings on the Wall

However, sometimes it goes other way around. Listen to the choruses of Stratovarius' Father Time (1996) and then Helloween's Salvation (The Dark Ride, 2000).

Tolkki uses lots of similar types of melodies and chord progressions in his songs. I love that kinds of melodies and chord progressions so that's not an issue to me, but I understand if someone says Tolkki recycles his own material (or someone else's materials for that matter ).

Sounds good to me. I'll be buying it.

And you know, I remember Timo's Symfonia project getting trashed by people (because it's been trendy to trash him for a while now), but I got that album a few weeks ago and it's pretty great. Nothing new in the realm of symphonic power metal, but a really solid album.

Really stupid band name, too. Can't imagine that helped sway the haters any. Haha.

I bought this album last weekend (the CD+DVD version). Just had time for one spin so far, but it sounds very promising. Ryd is a tremendous singer. Not to mention you get Rob Rock doing lead vocals on most of the tracks. Russell Allen, Sharon Den Adel, too... and the songs are pretty interesting too. I'm really surprised how this turned out.