Aina, Days of rising doom

Sacha Paeth is off to prove he is the best producer of the modern power metal era and, accompanied by most of the members from Heavens gate and Amanda Somerville, has managed to create one of the most epic and interesting metal opera albums ever. This album has pretty much everything I love about power metal (epic and memorable tunes, epic voices, epic choirs, epic guitar solos and epicness all around, enough to give to others) and lacks everything I hate about power metal (meaning cheesiness, dragons and dying on your shield).
And hats off to them for managing to gather the cream of the cream, with Glenn Hughes form Deep purple, Michael Kiske from Helloween, Candice Night from Blackmore's Night, Damian Wilson from every good progressive project ever, Marco Hietala from Nightwish, Tobias Sammet from Avantasia, Andre Matos from Angra and my newest and most awesome discovery, Thomas Rettke from Heavens Gate. Not to mention musicians from Dream Theater, Stratovarious, Gamma Ray, Nightwish, Kamelot and Ayreon. Just listing the names is enough to make me dance around with joy!!!

The beginning of Revelations sets high standards for this album, it's epic (yes, the word "epic" will be mentioned ten thousand times and no other word will do it justice) and it has a children choir. Aaaand it's such typical power metal to sing so joyfully about sorrow and despair and then conclude with a guitar solo, I already love this.

Silver maiden is a bit cheesy for my taste (mostly because of the lyrics), but it's still nowhere near the levels of true cheese that I know this genre can produce and the instrumental is really pretty.

With Flight of Torek starts the best part of the album, in my opinion. The quartet of awesomeness that is (coincidentally or not) centered around the character interpreted by my new found love, Thomas Rettke. It's fast paced, it's powerful, it's memorable and it's awesome! I especially like how Talon's interlude breaks the chaos and then slowly grows with "fire coursing through his veins" up to the choir. E-P-I-C.

Naschotk is born flows directly from the previous song (you can't even tell there's a separate song without knowing beforehand) and it's one of my favourite parts. The change of rhythm that already starts on "will someday see it buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurn" and the darkening of the atmosphere along with the darkening of Torek's feelings are fabulous! And if it wasn't already abundantly clear, I'm in awe with Thomas' vocals and I can't stop singing this song!

The beast within is in the same aggressive and slightly darker vein as Naschtok is born (darker compared to the rest of the album, I mean; for how tragic the story is, the music is a bit too cheerful sometimes) and it's another powerful song.

The siege of Aina is the most epic of the epics and the intro is epic and the children choir is epic and there's epic over epic and yeah, you get the point. My favourite part is around minute 3, I just adore the way the whole terrifying speech climaxes with the "Skies will be torn and rain on the siege of Aina" choir. The contrast between all the anger before and Candice's calm voice is so well done, I love this woman! She has such warmth and emotion, it's enough for her to sing two lyrics to light up a song.

Talon's last hope is a very old-school song, starting from the guitar solo in the beginning and ending with Glenn Hughes' vocals. I really appreciate how they matched the style of the song with the style of the singer, each character seems like a reflection of the personality of the singer or the singer was chosen perfectly to match the character... I don't know which one generated the other, but it's a very successful balance. The only thing that bothers me is that they hint Oriana has some magical powers and then she seems to be just a normal (albeit badass) person.

As each of the singers gets his moment to shine, Rape of Oria is Candice's moment. The song is nothing out of the ordinary, it's a sad but somewhat hopeful ballad that has more story value rather than musical value, but Candice has such a pleasant voice that she can sing anything and I will like it. 

Son of Sorvahr is pretty catchy, but I'm not a fan of how happily they're singing praise to the child of darkness. It's.... you know, the child of darkness, not the child of Disney.

Serendipity is a superb ballad, I love the sad melancholic atmosphere of it and the acoustic guitar. Also, it made me realise why everyone is raving about Michael Kiske, he singlehandedly turns the song from pretty to gorgeous. 

Lalae Amer sounds like someone's channeling his inner Tolkien. That made up language has a very elvish feel and even the context makes me think of Arwen dreaming of Aragorn.

Glenn Hughes' voice is impressive! Rebellion is an awesome song in itself, but this is another example of the vocals spectacularly bringing a song to life. Sung by anyone else, it wouldn't have been half as good.

Oriana's wrath comes back to the epic choirs and Marco and Sass's voice are kickass and work really well together (btw, I really thought Sass is a black Tina Turner type of woman judging by her voice, I was really surprised to see how she looks like). I love the first part, but as soon as they start talking it becomes rather trailing and I don't really like the way the words flow, especially on Oriana's part, they seem forced to fit into that bar.

Restoration reiterates the theme from Revelations, only more burdened, marking how the hope and joy of the beginning were changed by all the horrible things that happened and then it reiterates a few of the main themes throughout the album. There is still hope, but the past cannot erased, that's the note on which the story ends and I think it's a very nice touch.