Stratovarius - Destiny

Our Price: $39.99
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Category: Music CD
See more CD details

CD Details

Music reviews of Destiny

Music Review: Well, I don't like it.
Rating: 1 Stars

(But first, a bit of background for the uninitiated. Stratovarius is a power metal band from Europe. Uh, yeah.)

(1) Timo Tolkki, the band's guitarist, is unoriginal to the point where his solos sound like the worst, most pointlessly masturbatory moments of Yngwie Malmsteen. What makes him even less original is that he actually seems to recycle the same riffs from song to song, album to album.

(2) The keyboards and guitar solos are fast fast fast, but with nothing in the way of melody or emotion. Guitarists who can spit out 16 measures of 128th notes played flawlessly at breakneck speed are a dime a dozen these days. So, sorry Tolkki, but if you can't do anything _but_ play fast, you aren't so hot, really.

(3) Vocalist Timo Koltipelto, despite being a technically skilled singer, has real problems with English. He winds up placing the accent on the wrong syllable, making already bad lyrics sound worse.

(4) Singing at very high notes, Koltipelto sounds terrible.

(5) The lyrics are insultingly bad. The songs all feature alien grammar and fatuous rhyming that must be Tolkki’s idea of poetry. Check out these lines from "4000 Rainy Nights": "These empty days are filling me with pain | After I left it seems my life is only rain [!!] | My heart is longing to the better times | When everything was still so fine [!?!]." Oh, how emotional! Such striking diction, such stirring poetry! My heart is breaking! In all seriousness, I'd rank the lyrics at about the same writing quality as the script for an Italian x-rated movie.

(6) With lyrics that are worse than bad, you are further reminded that Koltipelto is an annoying singer.

(7)The band seems to adhere the exact same drum track to every song. That is, each speedy metal cut is characterized by obnoxious abuse of double-bass drum and senseless whacking of the snare. Combined with reused riffs, fast Stratovarius songs are basically indistinguishable from one another.

(8) The drumming, which is detestable enough as is, is set so loud and overproduced in the mix that it becomes unbearable.

(9) Stratovarius' sense of melody and songwriting sounds suspiciously like bulk-rate AOR or hair metal (a genre that died for a reason).

(10) Sometimes Stratovarius is called "progressive metal." This is just false. Being progressive supplicates a certain degree of originality, which Stratovarius does not possess. They have shown zilch in terms of artistic growth over the course of their careers (which, as of this writing, covers eight studio albums). Okay, so they have a pair of 10-minute songs, but writing long songs is not a progressive quality in and of itself. Anyone considering the purchase of this album because it's been touted as "first-rate progressive metal" should NOT buy this album.

All right, I'll be fair. "Anthem of the World" is a great song...at first. A string section plays a killer riff, which is picked up by the guitar. It's intense, and it sounds killer. But when those pounding, overproduced drums settle in, and Koltipelto starts singing some vile notes, it's finished. I also admire (such a strong word, but I'll use it anyway) the band's sense of optimism and the fact that they certainly enjoy the music they're making. That's really what it's about, isn't it?

Stratovarius, ... You are abject

Description of Destiny

Hard Rock & Metal CDs

• Music > Styles
• Pop
• Rock