Twilight Time

by

Stratovarius

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Huge improvement over their debut Fright Night. Songwriting is almost as good as on Dreamspace even though more straightforward. Production also head above better but still lacks a bit. Twilight Time isn't as melodic or powerful as for example Fourth Dimension. It combines carefully crafted melodies and hooks (typical for Stratovarius' later albums) with more traditional and straightforward heavy metal creating very unique sound that was early Stratovarius. The strong aspect of this album is the fact that there ain't really any weak songs even though few of them might be not-so-likeable at first.

"Break the Ice" is a great hard rocker with surprisingly strong vocals from Tolkki (and his English pronounciation is actually better than Kotipelto's).

"The Hands of Time" is the most groundbreaking song (and also one of their all time best) with mindblowing beginning that clearly inspired many musicians like Edguy's Tobias Sammett (listen to the song "Vain Glory Opera", very similar beginning isn't it).

"Madness Strikes at Midnight" is the first of two more traditional metal tracks with eerie melody in the beginning, somehow catchy with nice solo.

"Twilight Time" also one of all time best, quite varied with changing tempo, nice slow chorus and heavy riffing and again nice solo.

"The Hills Have Eyes" a bit similar with "Madness..", eerie beginning but afterwards turns out as a nice rocker with catchy groove.

"Out of the Shadows" sounds very happy and light after few heavier songs, slightly similar with "The Hands of Time" with very catchy chorus.

"Lead Us in to the Light" fantastic and almost hypnotic slow-tempo epic-ballad-thing, one of the most succesful compositions from Tolkki.

Very underrated album and one of Stratovarius' finest moments. This album clearly shows that Tolkki had vision that he succesfully continued to fulfil on Dreamspace. It's creative in certain limits, not like Dreamspace which is creative as a whole. This is the last Strato album where you can still hear traditional 80's heavy metal influences elsewhere than just in solos. I'll give this one 4.5 stars!

Stratovarius took me by surprise. For some reason known only to me, I was expecting a progressive metal album a' la Dream Theater. Wrong. Perhaps the name Stratovarius fooled me into thinking that they were going to show off their instrumental prowess in plenty of soloing. Instead, this is almost (I'll come back to this almost) a straight power metal album. Something that would make Gamma Ray, Helloween or Nocturnal Rites proud. Band leader and main songwriter Timo Tolkki has written a solid album of power/pop metal tunes. This came out in 1993, when I was not paying any attention to metal at all (I have since seen the light, heh heh), so it could be that this type of sound was innovative at the time. There is a significant amount of symphonic embellishment in the music, I can see where bands like Rhapsody may have gotten their inspiration from. That is the main function of the keyboards, providing lush backgrounds for the music, and this is where Stratovarius differs from bands like Gamma Ray. A notch against the album are Tolkki's vocals. They are adequate, but just so-so. Perhaps he knew so too, because he soon after hired a killer singer in Timo Kotipelto.