Fourth Dimension
Fourth Dimension
| 01. Against The Wind - 3:48 02. Distant Skies - 4:10 03. Galaxies - 5:00 04. Winter - 6:32 05. Stratovarius - 6:22 06. Lord Of The Wasteland - 6:11 07. 030366 - 5:46 08. Nightfall - 5:09 09. We Hold The Key - 7:53 10. Twilight Symphony - 6:59 11. Call Of The Wilderness - 1:30 |
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| The group's last album before getting into their first-class lineup, this demonstrates a no frills, fast & intensely melodic side to the band, which will evolve even further down the road; not as highly acclaimed as, say, Episode and Visions, this still offers a splendid mix of melodic metal and a little prog. While we are not treated to an aural feast of Jen's keyboards and Jorg's drum-playing, the band members whose first names are not Timo still provide some very solid playing; vocals and guitars though - absolutely first class. Oh yes, and the songs are great as well - we have the intensely melodic choruses of the opener 'Against the Wind', and 'Distant Skies', the slower and more emotional 'Galaxies' and 'Winter', the former being one of the main highlights, btw; the full out speed of tracks such as 'Lord of the Wasteland', and the intricate instrumentals such as 'Stratovarius'...there is also the fantastic seven minute piece, 'Twilight Symphony' - an extremely beautiful and (duh) symphonic track which has some extremely moving music for the last 3 or so minutes - the 'Dreamspace' of the album despite the last section being completely opposite of the aforementioned song. |
| Now, it wouldn't be an album without some music to scoff at, and well...there's that too...'030366', other than being a blatant rip-off of 'Ryche's 'Dreaming in Digital', basically defines what a shit-song is supposed to be, having all the required characteristics - industrial/techno drumming, computer-like/spoken vocals, jazz riffs, and something on the loan from the rusty and mildewed Irons (Maidens, that is) - repetition of one word (or in this case, one number)...eeep!!! Also, quite unspectacular is the slow, acoustic driven 'Nightfall', and the extremely overrated 'We Hold the Key', which is nothing more than an adequate mid-tempo track which just HAPPENS to be 8 minutes long...Well, perhaps that was too harsh - over time, I've grown to like 'We Hold the Key' quite a bit, especially the bombastic intro, the excellent build up, and the little slow section in the solo. A good song overall, just paling in comparison to 75% of the other stuff. Save for these 3 (err...2) tracks, it's an awesome album, bursting with energy and intricacy (not to mention melody). I can't think of one reason to not recommend this... |
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