SONATA ARCTICA: Ecliptica (MELODIC METAL): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

Back to the beginning of the 2000 years... Heavy Metal is back in vogue with a young audience after several years of diet. Indeed, a new melodic wave submerges many countries thanks to bands like Angra, Rhapsody or Stratovarius. And logically this fashion effect leads to the appearance of new formations like Sonata Arctica which is born in 1996. Their first album, "Ecliptica", is released at the end of 1999 in Finland and at the beginning of 2000 everywhere else after the band signed on the label Spinefarm.

"Ecliptica" develops a melodic metal very close to Helloween or Stratovarius on ten ultra speed tracks containing catchy melodies, lulls and more progressive passages. The album reveals a singer, Tony Kakko, totally at ease in all registers, a mix of Tobias Sammet and Bruce Dickinson.

The record offers fast tracks like the powerful 'Blank File' which opens the album or "8th Commandment" in which the guitars and the keyboard complete each other perfectly. In this genre, we can also mention the first single of the band 'UnOpened', inspired by Malmsteen and Stratovarius, which convinces by its insolent freshness and its cheerful and catchy character.

Beside these speed tracks, the band offers slower tracks such as 'My Land', 'Kingdom For A Heart' with its unstoppable chorus or 'Fullmoon', the absolute hit of the album with its soft beginning, its slow rise in power and its chorus magnified by bewitching choirs. Finally, Sonata Arctica doesn't forget to offer us slower and progressive tracks that allow to air the record and to give it depth. 'Letter To Dana' is a very successful ballad with its acoustic riff and its superb vocal lines while 'Replica' with its small FM aspect, proposes a very good chorus easily memorable.

With this first album, Sonata Arctica signs a real master stroke and manages to rise well beyond the status of simple hope. Would a legend be born? - Official website

SONATA ARCTICA

ECLIPTICA

WAGRAM

MELODIC METAL