Avantasia reviewed
Avantasia
The Scarecrow
(Nuclear Blast)
Give it to Tobias Sammet – Edguy frontman and Avantasia mastermind – for being ballsy: On a record of mostly four-to-six minute songs, he puts the only epic, the 11-minute title track, second in the sequence.
The tune’s quality or length isn’t the problem, mind you. The problem is, after spending 11:11 of The Scarecrow‘s first 17 minutes on one song, you’re twiddling your thumbs by the time track six, “Another Angel Down,” hits. Of course, much of that has to do with the fact one of those songs is “What Kind Of Love,” a duet with Aina’s Amanda Somerville and the wimpiest song to appear on any metal record outside Michael Bolton’s Everybody’s Crazy. It’s so incredibly limp it makes the album’s other cheese tray, “Cry Just A Little,” sound like “Raining Blood.”
Scarecrow is stuffed with guest appearances – Jorn Lande (ex-Masterplan), Michael Kiske (ex-Helloween), Rudolf Schenker (Scorpions) – and the most noteworthy is Alice Cooper, who hams it up Trash style on “The Toy Master.” It’s a shame Cooper was wasted on one of the album’s lowpoints, but then again, with the exception of “Devil In The Belfry” and “Twisted Mind,” they’re aren’t many highs.
– Trevor Fisher
