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tahu157
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Joined: Mon Jul 21, 2014 10:22 pm
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 13, 2023 3:47 pm 
 

EDIT: Full album info

Image

Tracklist:
1 - First in Line
2 - California
3 - Sha Mat
4 - Dark Empath
5 - Cure for Everything
6 - A Monster Only You Can't See
7 - Teardrops
8 - Angel Defiled
9 - The Best Things
10 - Clear Cold Beyond
11 - A Ballad for the Broken (bonus track)
12 - Toy Soldiers (Martika cover, bonus track)




I know "return to form" is a claim that is almost never true, but man, this song sounds like it's straight outta the Winterheart's Guild/Reckoning Night era.


Last edited by tahu157 on Fri Nov 24, 2023 2:43 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Benedict Donald
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 13, 2023 3:48 pm 
 

Damn, this really does feel like it's from the classic era.
Definitely intrigued for this now.

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deadtome
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Joined: Sat Aug 12, 2023 10:48 am
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 13, 2023 4:42 pm 
 

Very nice, thanx for posting this.

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Dullahan
Metal newbie

Joined: Tue Sep 27, 2016 9:17 pm
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 13, 2023 4:58 pm 
 

Definitely an improvement, especially in the sound mix. Not perfect, but workable. I still can't listen to Talviyö that much because of how amateurish and limp it sounds.

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jimbies
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 13, 2023 7:06 pm 
 

Wow - maybe the first Sonata Arctica song that I actually like in over a decade.

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ChildClownOutlet
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 13, 2023 9:17 pm 
 

Have I not been listening to SA that much or is Tony's voice much...whinier?

The song is meh, it's nice and cheesy but not the cheesy I'd listen to on repeat like San Sebastian.
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Simfers
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 13, 2023 9:59 pm 
 

That does sound much closer to the Reckoning Night style. Which is a good thing in my books, I do prefer their older material, even though I always find something to like in their new stuff.

Now, to see if the rest of the songs follow suit. I presume this is a prelude to a new album, but this is the first I hear of new SA material, is any more info available?

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LycanthropeMoon
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 13, 2023 11:05 pm 
 

This is indeed them at their most "oldschool" sounding since... well, 20 years ago. Even the throwback songs on recent albums don't sound quite as classically SA as this track does. I like it quite a bit (and I admittedly also like a lot of the new stuff too - sorry folks).

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xexyzl
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Joined: Fri Jul 24, 2009 12:38 pm
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 14, 2023 1:58 am 
 

Sounds like the early stuff, but doesn't feel the same. I'm sure a big part is not being a teenager anymore, but it also just lacks that wildly exuberant character that elevated all the good Finnish power/folk/melodeath material from that era.

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Empyreal
The Final Frontier

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PostPosted: Sat Oct 14, 2023 9:27 am 
 

I like that they just move around and do different sounds when they feel like it - a few years of just completely weird prog stuff, then some more hard rock and now maybe power metal again. I can dig it. Tony still has the old knack for writing melodies and almost nobody can sell a chorus like him. Music sounds nice and colorful.
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tahu157
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 14, 2023 12:44 pm 
 

Simfers wrote:
I presume this is a prelude to a new album, but this is the first I hear of new SA material, is any more info available?

All the articles I read said this was part of their forthcoming album and they are targeting Spring 2024 for release, but that's about it. No tracklist, title, or artwork yet.

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Simfers
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 14, 2023 11:53 pm 
 

Thanks for the info! 2024 is looking good already with SA, Judas Priest and Riot V all coming!

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narsilianshard
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 15, 2023 12:14 pm 
 

Holy shit. I really did not think they had it in them anymore. The chorus isn't quite as catchy and fun enough to compete with their old songs, but this is still a massive shift for them. I'll be picking the new album up for sure, and I haven't touched anything from them since Days of Grays.
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DarkSkiesGreyWaters
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Joined: Fri Sep 01, 2023 7:07 am
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 15, 2023 4:16 pm 
 

Actually pretty solid. Nice pace, cool leads, pretty catchy chorus. Definitely has a Reckoning Night's vibe. It's weird to hear them return to their Power roots after the, for better or worse, experimental albums they've been doing for years.

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SentByTheDevil87
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 19, 2023 7:21 pm 
 

I hope they can keep this up for an entire album and that this isn't just an outlier.

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Talkest Marij
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Joined: Fri Nov 17, 2023 8:32 pm
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 17, 2023 8:41 pm 
 

YES, this is the sound I love from the best band ever!

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Talkest Marij
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 17, 2023 8:53 pm 
 

So, is this their ‘wolf’ song? It actually seems to reference both “amazing grays” and “the wolves die young”.

I love this and I agree with the above post that I hope this is generally where they are going with the album. I mean, I don’t mind them trying new stuff, but I want them to keep their specfic sound. Toni Kakko is an amazing vocalist and he’s got a solid band and solid sound. SA is my top fave artist since over a decade.

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hells_unicorn
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 19, 2023 2:34 pm 
 

If this song is indicative of where the new album is going, I'm going to dance the jig like a drunken leprechaun. Ever since Unia these guys have sounded less like Sonata Arctica and more like a meandering Tony Kakko solo project. The only thing that would make my life complete were this to come to pass would be if Edguy reformed and dropped their goofy pop/rock shtick in favor of something approximating Mandrake.
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metroplex
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 20, 2023 10:07 am 
 

Calm down guys, we've seen this before. They always tease as with an older style song before the album drops and it's more of Tony's experimental material.

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hells_unicorn
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 20, 2023 11:20 am 
 

metroplex wrote:
Calm down guys, we've seen this before. They always tease as with an older style song before the album drops and it's more of Tony's experimental material.


Oh I am personally guardedly pessimistic about the prospect of getting a stylistically consistent work under the Sonata Arctica brand post-2004, I went through a similar thing back with The Days Of Grays after they dropped a reasonably solid "Flag In The Ground" as their first single. Granted, this song is superior than the aforementioned one, but I'm not taking it for granted that after 17 years of mostly auditory dung being put out that I'm going to get something akin to Silence or Winterheart's Guild just out of the blue like this. But hey, a guy can hope, right?
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Empyreal
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 20, 2023 11:22 am 
 

I don't get why there's still hand wringing about it... just listen to the stuff you do like from them, then. Even if this new album is still another experimental one. I'll be fine with whatever as long as Tony is still doing excellent melodic work and following his own muse. New song sounds like Pariah's Child with a more old school keyboard thing going on - it's a little less complex than some of the stuff on the old albums. Really addictive though. Hoping the whole album is good - but I've liked all their stuff.
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hells_unicorn
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 20, 2023 11:59 am 
 

Empyreal wrote:
I don't get why there's still hand wringing about it... just listen to the stuff you do like from them, then. Even if this new album is still another experimental one. I'll be fine with whatever as long as Tony is still doing excellent melodic work and following his own muse. New song sounds like Pariah's Child with a more old school keyboard thing going on - it's a little less complex than some of the stuff on the old albums. Really addictive though. Hoping the whole album is good - but I've liked all their stuff.


Speaking for myself, I think it's pretty well established what I expect from my favorite/formerly favorite power metal bands. Furthermore, most of SA's discography is more of a blur to me after Unia, which is the only album that I can say I outright hate by them. Experimentation shouldn't be an excuse for scatterbrained writing, and I definitely disagree that Tony's writing has been excellent melodically, much of it seems to be needlessly averse to hooks in some misguided quest for being different. Still, I will concur with you regarding Pariah's Child, which I'd say was a half-hearted return to a more consistent, albeit watered-down songwriting approach.
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Empyreal
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 20, 2023 5:52 pm 
 

All of it has consistently been interesting to hear what they'd come up with, and the hooks are always stuck in my head forever after every new release. I couldn't say the same for a huge amount of other melodic bands that I've liked before - many of them just keep doing the same stuff to the point of tedium for my tastes, like that Iron Savior that just came out. Not to compare apples and oranges... but I'd rather hear something new even if it is weird, and I'd only want to hear a rehash of old Sonata or old any band if that was truly what the band wanted to do in their souls.

Pariah's Child is more like a reimagining of their old shit - it's more poppy, more rockish, but with the same level of insane catchiness. Great album and takes nothing away from the classics. One of my favs of theirs.
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hells_unicorn
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 20, 2023 8:30 pm 
 

Empyreal wrote:
All of it has consistently been interesting to hear what they'd come up with, and the hooks are always stuck in my head forever after every new release. I couldn't say the same for a huge amount of other melodic bands that I've liked before - many of them just keep doing the same stuff to the point of tedium for my tastes, like that Iron Savior that just came out. Not to compare apples and oranges... but I'd rather hear something new even if it is weird, and I'd only want to hear a rehash of old Sonata or old any band if that was truly what the band wanted to do in their souls.

Pariah's Child is more like a reimagining of their old shit - it's more poppy, more rockish, but with the same level of insane catchiness. Great album and takes nothing away from the classics. One of my favs of theirs.


I think I understand at least a significant part of why we're divided on this, I love bands/musicians because of the music they make, you love music because of the bands/musicians that make it. To further unpack what I mean, you seem to be attached to the artists at the first and hold a view that they need to go a path along the lines of Metallica, i.e. experiment beyond their stylistic purview and reinvent themselves on a continued basis, and this somehow corresponds to what the artist either wants/needs to do "in their souls". Historically, most artists have done this prior to the advent of the internet because, in my opinion, they were playing to a fickle mainstream audience that was partly controlled by the recording industry, but more so just naturally fickle and easily bored. Not to put words in your mouth, but this reminds me of the mentality that most of my friends had growing up listening to whatever the radio or MTV put in front of them while they were taken aback as to why I spent so much money on CDs and would be easily irritable if I was riding with someone in the car and they were surfing channels aimlessly in search of the latest hit.

Don't take this as an insult, because my intent is simply to draw distinctions, not to say that one of us has better taste than the other. I have a very insular understanding when it comes to music, and I've had it for most of my life. I associate sounds with bands, and even though my tastes have diversified with time, I view the notion of experimentation to the degree that Sonata Arctica has done to be pointless in a theoretical sense, and the musical result is usually either displeasing or repelling in the actual sense. I don't necessarily hate a given band for evolving, yet I almost always dislike the manner in which they evolve if the evolutionary course taken is jarring or defies my understanding of logical progression. This is why Unia coming immediately after an album like Reckoning Night came off as an auditory turd to my ears, and honestly, after having put it on a few minutes after your latest comment, my view of the album has become even more negative after not hearing it for over 10 years. Take from it what you will, but I honestly struggled to make it through one song.
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Last edited by hells_unicorn on Mon Nov 20, 2023 8:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Metallic Shock
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 20, 2023 8:35 pm 
 

According to quotes included in this article by Kakko it looks like the intent is very much to focus on this sound for the whole album. Apparently he even said there were no ballads on it during a live show in Tavastia, but I just read that on a Reddit thread and haven't confirmed it. If this is true, I'm certainly excited because this is quite the promising lead-off single. There are certainly some strong tracks in the post-2004 part of their discography and I have a decent bit of fun with Pariah's Child, but the songwriting doesn't tend to grab me on a lot of these later albums enough to rank them as true successes. It would be great to have another barnstormer of a power metal album by them after all these years, and it looks like we may very well get that this time.
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Empyreal
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 21, 2023 8:13 am 
 

hells_unicorn wrote:
Empyreal wrote:
All of it has consistently been interesting to hear what they'd come up with, and the hooks are always stuck in my head forever after every new release. I couldn't say the same for a huge amount of other melodic bands that I've liked before - many of them just keep doing the same stuff to the point of tedium for my tastes, like that Iron Savior that just came out. Not to compare apples and oranges... but I'd rather hear something new even if it is weird, and I'd only want to hear a rehash of old Sonata or old any band if that was truly what the band wanted to do in their souls.

Pariah's Child is more like a reimagining of their old shit - it's more poppy, more rockish, but with the same level of insane catchiness. Great album and takes nothing away from the classics. One of my favs of theirs.


I think I understand at least a significant part of why we're divided on this, I love bands/musicians because of the music they make, you love music because of the bands/musicians that make it. To further unpack what I mean, you seem to be attached to the artists at the first and hold a view that they need to go a path along the lines of Metallica, i.e. experiment beyond their stylistic purview and reinvent themselves on a continued basis, and this somehow corresponds to what the artist either wants/needs to do "in their souls". Historically, most artists have done this prior to the advent of the internet because, in my opinion, they were playing to a fickle mainstream audience that was partly controlled by the recording industry, but more so just naturally fickle and easily bored. Not to put words in your mouth, but this reminds me of the mentality that most of my friends had growing up listening to whatever the radio or MTV put in front of them while they were taken aback as to why I spent so much money on CDs and would be easily irritable if I was riding with someone in the car and they were surfing channels aimlessly in search of the latest hit.

Don't take this as an insult, because my intent is simply to draw distinctions, not to say that one of us has better taste than the other. I have a very insular understanding when it comes to music, and I've had it for most of my life. I associate sounds with bands, and even though my tastes have diversified with time, I view the notion of experimentation to the degree that Sonata Arctica has done to be pointless in a theoretical sense, and the musical result is usually either displeasing or repelling in the actual sense. I don't necessarily hate a given band for evolving, yet I almost always dislike the manner in which they evolve if the evolutionary course taken is jarring or defies my understanding of logical progression. This is why Unia coming immediately after an album like Reckoning Night came off as an auditory turd to my ears, and honestly, after having put it on a few minutes after your latest comment, my view of the album has become even more negative after not hearing it for over 10 years. Take from it what you will, but I honestly struggled to make it through one song.


Well it's interesting you bring up that comparison about surfing channels for "hits"... that's just never how I listened to anything. I know there was a whole culture of artists who had to change in the 80s and 90s to meet trends, but I wasn't alive in the 80s and wasn't seriously listening to music in the 90s. It's not about anything like trends to me. I find that the other direction of what you're saying ends up where we're treating an artist as a commodity: "yes, I'm a satisfied consumer, they've done what I wanted." I never care about any artist doing what I want them to, I don't want the fans to dictate any part of it.

Metallica is an interesting example since it never seemed like they were doing what anyone wanted for a long time, and then their albums since 2008 have all been quite safe - but I like those anyway, so who knows.

Also, the original thing I said to start this was mostly just saying I don't really care if artists keep doing what I want since I'd always just go back to the classics anyway if I wanted that sound.
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Benedict Donald
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 21, 2023 11:29 am 
 

Listening to "The Days Of Grays" now for the first time in quite a while. This album is fantastic.
The track "Last Amazing Grays" is one of their best, IMO.

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LycanthropeMoon
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 21, 2023 12:41 pm 
 

"The Days of Grays" rules, honestly. It's as fun as it is... well, weird. There are times where it's my favorite post-"Reckoning Night" album.

Speaking of "Reckoning Night", that's where they started getting weird and I'm surprised more people don't point that out, lol. "Unia" is a pretty natural progression from that album but people act like it was this massive unforeseen change. It's fine to not enjoy it of course but you could very much hear them heading in that direction.

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Empyreal
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 21, 2023 12:44 pm 
 

The Days of Grays has to be their most "what the fuck" album ever. But there were a lot of quite affecting parts of that one too.
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Hardworlder
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 21, 2023 1:01 pm 
 

I thought I was the only one that loved The Days of Grays lol. It's definitely an odd one, but something just works for me on that album where a lot of the other stuff is hit and miss for me for some reason.

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Curious_dead
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Joined: Wed Sep 20, 2006 12:13 pm
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 21, 2023 2:53 pm 
 

metroplex wrote:
Calm down guys, we've seen this before. They always tease as with an older style song before the album drops and it's more of Tony's experimental material.


Maybe, but this is (IMO) one of their very best songs since they became more experimental. Plus, it seems to feature a better production than on the previous album, where the production muted some of the songs. First in Line is also more straight power than some of their typical "powerish first single".

It's still possible it's the only song like that, but even if this is something akin to 9th Hour or Pariah's Child + this song, I feel like I'll like it a lot.

Also, Days of Grays is a great album indeed. It was definitely a grower, now it's probably my most listened to album post-Reckoning Night.

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hells_unicorn
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 21, 2023 8:09 pm 
 

Empyreal wrote:
Well it's interesting you bring up that comparison about surfing channels for "hits"... that's just never how I listened to anything. I know there was a whole culture of artists who had to change in the 80s and 90s to meet trends, but I wasn't alive in the 80s and wasn't seriously listening to music in the 90s. It's not about anything like trends to me. I find that the other direction of what you're saying ends up where we're treating an artist as a commodity: "yes, I'm a satisfied consumer, they've done what I wanted." I never care about any artist doing what I want them to, I don't want the fans to dictate any part of it.


Oh I didn't intend to imply that you were a product of radio-oriented culture, but rather that your point about desiring bands to change things up and get experimental and also bringing in a subjective standard of what is in the artist's soul is the exact sort of lingo that was pushed during the 80s and 90s era in which I grew up. Trends are a consequence of a mentality, not a cause of it, though historically labels have treated it the opposite way and have tried to market bands this way, which in my opinion is why you had these artificial "boom and bust" cycles with trends from the swinging 30s up until the present. But the marketing side of that era was not my primary point, but rather that the culture of that time was marked by a fickleness that pervaded the general public, a fickleness that I would argue is generally still present despite the changes the internet brought.

Your final point underscores what I was talking about, you have an artist-centric view of music, and it leads you to a different assessment of the musical result. I wasn't talking about commercialism or the whole music being art vs. being a commodity, that's a non-sequitur. If you didn't give any weight to your own opinions, why share them, let alone write album reviews expressing them? When I form an opinion about music, it begins with the objective attributes of the music, any subjective elements I read into it are always secondary. I don't presume an insincerity on your part here, I'm simply drawing a distinction to explain why Sonata Arctica's "experimental era" doesn't agree with my ears.

Quote:
Metallica is an interesting example since it never seemed like they were doing what anyone wanted for a long time, and then their albums since 2008 have all been quite safe - but I like those anyway, so who knows.


Oh I would beg to differ, they may have alienated fans of their older material with the meandering mess that was their career from the 90s up until the late 2000s, but they were primarily interested in audience expansion. But as I said previously, I couldn't care less if Metallica had gone diamond playing watered-down radio rock in a cynical trend-chasing exercise or if they managed to do it playing pure thrash, I think the Load albums and St. Anger sucked based on what I heard alone, and evidently millions of people disagreed with me given how good they managed to sell.

Quote:
Also, the original thing I said to start this was mostly just saying I don't really care if artists keep doing what I want since I'd always just go back to the classics anyway if I wanted that sound.


You also asked why there is still hand wringing about it, which prompted me explaining why in my case. I wasn't necessarily seeking to criticize your opinions, I was explaining mine and later ended up contrasting them with what seemed to be yours based on my understanding of what you said.
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Simfers
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 23, 2023 12:12 pm 
 

More details about the album (including, crucially, the release date, 8 March) here:

https://bravewords.com/news/sonata-arct ... s-revealed

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tahu157
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 24, 2023 11:06 am 
 

It is now time to play my favorite game "which songs are possibly part of the saga of Caleb". I'm thinking probably Dark Empath and A Monster Only You Can't See.

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Empyreal
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 24, 2023 11:19 am 
 

hells_unicorn wrote:
Empyreal wrote:
Well it's interesting you bring up that comparison about surfing channels for "hits"... that's just never how I listened to anything. I know there was a whole culture of artists who had to change in the 80s and 90s to meet trends, but I wasn't alive in the 80s and wasn't seriously listening to music in the 90s. It's not about anything like trends to me. I find that the other direction of what you're saying ends up where we're treating an artist as a commodity: "yes, I'm a satisfied consumer, they've done what I wanted." I never care about any artist doing what I want them to, I don't want the fans to dictate any part of it.


Oh I didn't intend to imply that you were a product of radio-oriented culture, but rather that your point about desiring bands to change things up and get experimental and also bringing in a subjective standard of what is in the artist's soul is the exact sort of lingo that was pushed during the 80s and 90s era in which I grew up. Trends are a consequence of a mentality, not a cause of it, though historically labels have treated it the opposite way and have tried to market bands this way, which in my opinion is why you had these artificial "boom and bust" cycles with trends from the swinging 30s up until the present. But the marketing side of that era was not my primary point, but rather that the culture of that time was marked by a fickleness that pervaded the general public, a fickleness that I would argue is generally still present despite the changes the internet brought.

Your final point underscores what I was talking about, you have an artist-centric view of music, and it leads you to a different assessment of the musical result. I wasn't talking about commercialism or the whole music being art vs. being a commodity, that's a non-sequitur. If you didn't give any weight to your own opinions, why share them, let alone write album reviews expressing them? When I form an opinion about music, it begins with the objective attributes of the music, any subjective elements I read into it are always secondary. I don't presume an insincerity on your part here, I'm simply drawing a distinction to explain why Sonata Arctica's "experimental era" doesn't agree with my ears.


Yeah, well it's certainly been an interesting back and forth, and I know many people agree with you on wanting a certain traditionalism or consistency of sound. I ultimately just like to see what bands come up with, and if they're following some muse or "soul" as I'd said before, then I try and hear it for what it is anyway. In the case of SA it always feels like Tony has something to say and that it's personal for him, so I always find it intriguing anyway. It's all relative at the end of the day. "Objective vs subjective" definitely comes into it, but I think the subjective is really all that matters at the end...

New song titles sound interesting. This is the longest between releases they've ever had I think, so definitely curious.
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Kalaratri
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 28, 2023 12:52 pm 
 

Well if they really are going "back to the roots", so to speak, that first single is not a bad way to start. Definitely seems like something that would fit on one of their early records.

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tahu157
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 07, 2023 8:20 pm 
 

Second song appears to have leaked. Pretty interesting song. Doesn't quite sound like anything else they've done before. Maybe a little bit like Reckoning Night, but not too much.

EDIT: Official Atomic Fire video instead of the leaked upload



Last edited by tahu157 on Fri Dec 08, 2023 4:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Benedict Donald
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 07, 2023 8:59 pm 
 

I quite liked it. It perfectly portrays the unique "oddball" character and writing that defines Sonata Arctica...really interesting stuff when executed well.

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Empyreal
The Final Frontier

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PostPosted: Fri Dec 08, 2023 1:44 am 
 

Sounding good - I think they're using a more retro wintry keyboard sound over music that again is something pretty fresh for them, another further permutation. I like these sorts of dense, rhythmic vocal lines and the choirs they do here. Cool tune.
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Curious_dead
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 08, 2023 2:57 pm 
 

I think I love the second song even more. It's powerful, and less immediately catchy than the first one, but I think this one goes deeper, lots of little details that I love that were found on post-Recknoning Nighgt albums but executed in a more traditionally-Sonata way. And again, better production than anything on Talviyo.

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