Sonata Arctica's ascension to fame was a rather quickly established one. While most bands take years to forge a niche of their own, slowly hammering away at their music to mould it into their own shape, occasionally even just destroying the sculpture in favour of something new, this band had quickly set their minds on what they wanted and their first record already was hailed as an excellent debut for a power metal band.
But SA never quite made their own niche. They simply drifted into a genre called power metal, which has long been saturated with bands like Stratovarius, Helloween, Rhapsody and all the possible copycat variations imaginable. And Tony Kakko does rely heavily on his Finnish counterparts' Stratovarius' oeuvre. Most of this album seems to have been ripped straight out of Tolkki and co.'s repertoire, but with one main difference: this band can actually do the power metal niche without sounding cheesy and make it work.
Yes, this album is what Stratovarius should have released, basically. Less cheesy nonsense about dragon-killing warriors, and other such outlandish nonsense. Sonata Arctica took the genre, but rather than filling it with lyrical tripe that sounds like they ripped out their Tolkien books and planted them in their music for the vocalist to sing, they remain more down to earth, dealing with things that could actually happen to humans, such as broken up relations, the internet destroying a life, and more of such themes are explored. While I by no means disapprove of this slightly more mature lyrical content, it is nonetheless true, that at this point in time Tony's mediocre English prevented him from actually making the lyrics convince. His overly prevalent Finnish accent and his rather poor grasp of English grammar kind of make the album fall flat lyrically.
Musically this album is very similar to Stratovarius as well. So why do I give this album a four-star rating regardless. Because SA just convince by not making the same song every time. Whereas you could take any Strat song, put it next to another Strat song, and you could not tell the difference, SA have actually made 11 different songs, put it on an album, fill it with some nice vocal hooks, catchy choruses, speedy guitar lines, over-the-top keyboard melodies, and pounding double bass... and sounding different every time, changing the tempo on different songs, and trying to sound like they're being inspired rather than plagiarising.
And some tracks on here I will say now are gems in the SA collection. Whereas this is not by any means SA's most accomplished album (that title is what Reckoning Night deserves), but classics like Replica, Full Moon and Kingdom For A Heart can be found on here. Replica is possibly my favourite SA song, while the lyrics are cheesy and about how someone does not feel like himself anymore, and has become a replica of his former self, the music is genuinely awesome. The keyboard licks, the intense atmosphere, and the guitars at the end building up to a climax just ensure this is one of the best songs I've ever heard.
Kingdom for a Heart is a typical paint-by-numbers SA track, with the typical "let's flurry our keyboards and guitars" mentality, but it works for these guys, and if it ain't broken, don't fix it. It's worked numerous times, add in a catchy chorus, and you've got gold on your hands. While Sonata Arctica just stuck to the recipe here, it's good to see that that was just a wise decision. It would have been very, very pretentious and likely to fail if they'd already gone overboard on here. It makes the record slightly generic, and the song exemplifies that, but hey, it's a catchy song and you can still genuinely like it, so there's nothing wrong here at all.
More songs follow that pattern, such as the 3000 mph song 8th Commandment, of which I still haven't figured out what the lyrics mean exactly, but I don't care because the chorus is catchy and the guitars and keyboards still shine through with their immense speed. A bit of a problem is that Tony Kakko still sounds like his balls are on the minute side, but the band was youthful still and they've shown consistent progression since then, so it doesn't really hinder listening to this album. Plus I enjoy vocalists that are more on the high tenor side. Tony has now found his range more, but it's just enjoyable to see from where a band that has come to give us a consistently high quality offering of power metal on a bi-triannual basis.
Overall, this is not SA's best record. It's highly enjoyable, easy to listen to and to get in, and it has "We're trying to be like Strat 'cause we looooooooove these guys" written all over it, but it's still a fun listen and some of the songs already show huge flashes of the talent and songwriting knack that would be perfected on later albums. In short, if you love power metal, you can't go wrong with this disc. It's a bit "more of the same", but it's consistently high quality throughout, so if you haven't picked it up yet, do so now. You'll be rewarded with a mighty fine album.
