By Enrico Spinelli.
Stratovarius are back with their new album Survive. This is one of my first metal bands of life, my first metal concert, for many years the paradigm of what metal was for me, a fundamental piece of my heart of steel.
Years have passed since 2000 when the cover of their album "Infinite" struck me, along with listening to their discography, and luckily it has been a long time since that mess of the self-titled album, of which you can see an appropriate homage in cover; and if we still regret the absence of Timo Tolkki, it is impossible not to note the state of grace of the group from the album "Polaris" who put them back on track with a different logo but with an energy that had been hiding for too long.
This "Survive" does not move the group's proposal, well anchored to a dark power, at times melancholy, more structured than the classic albums and with epic-like parts scattered here and there. A sure confirmation for those who have loved the most recent course of the band and who will find in songs like the title track, "Broken" or "World on Fire" some inspired tunes with an immediate chorus and with a structure that is anything but derivative. And paradoxically I have to include among the pieces that most convinced me the final suite "Voice of Thunder", an extremely engaging and enjoyable net of its 11 minutes of duration. Perhaps the only song that has told me less is "Firefly" but otherwise I cannot say that there are frankly bad songs.
Personally, I do not deny that I would have liked a shorter playing time, perhaps sacrificing 2 or 3 successful pieces but not in line with the others, but here we go frankly in the field of subjectivity, so I just have to recommend this "Survive" to everyone, power metal lovers and fans of the Scandinavian band ... who have already bought it!