Sonata Arctica - Reckoning Night review
| Band: | Sonata Arctica |
| Album: | Reckoning Night |
| Style: | Power metal |
| Release date: | October 11, 2004 |
| Guest review by: | Bas |
01. Misplaced
02. Blinded No More
03. Ain't Your Fairytale
04. Reckoning Day, Reckoning Night...
05. Don't Say A Word
06. The Boy Who Wanted To Be A Real Puppet
07. My Selene
08. Wildfire
09. White Pearl, Black Oceans...
10. Shamandalie
11. Jam [hidden track]
12. Wrecking The Sphere [Japanese bonus]
When you see this CD standing on a shelf in your favourite CD-store, don't let the wonderful cover art fool you, yes it is beautiful, yes it is creative, yes it has the Sonata Arctica logo on it, but this album certainly isn't beautiful or creative, and in fact doesn't even really sound like Sonata Arctica either.
Boring is the word that comes to my mind after a few moments of listening to this. On other pieces of work SA have showed a huge amount of passion for music, but where did that go? It all sounds extremely flat and lustless, and gives an impression that this album was made for the sake of producing a CD and earning money, not for the sake of making music the musicians themselves enjoy. The instruments all have extremely little variation: basic riffs which are repeated the whole time, extremely simplistic keyboard lines, repetitive drumming etc. The vocals do have a lot of variation in them and display quite some talent on Mr. Kakko's side, however no passion. Yes it is varied, yes he is talented, but that doesn't at all make it good.
Even the only-keyboard instrumental Reckoning Day, Reckoning Night doesn't show any sign of creativity or progression; boring, repetitive, uninspired. The first part of this CD which is actually worth listening to is the solo at the end of Don't Say A Word from there on this album has at least has some variation (not much though), but still sounds flat. Especially bad, is the eighth song, Wildfire; this track reminds me of techno music in a few passages, but certainly not of metal. White Pearl, Black Ocean however is a good song, the only one in which I recognize the band capable of writing amazing emotional ballads like Letter To Dana.
This whole review might be kind of harsh as this isn't a "really, really" bad album, and it still displays some talent of the band, but the passion is gone. I love this Finnish band, but this is not a Sonata Arctica album.
Rating breakdown
| Performance: | 9 |
| Songwriting: | 5 |
| Originality: | 6 |
| Production: | 8 |
Written by Bas | 10.09.2006
Guest review disclaimer:
This is a guest review, which means it does not necessarily represent the point of view of the MS Staff.
This is a guest review, which means it does not necessarily represent the point of view of the MS Staff.
Rating:
8.9
8.9
|
Rating: 8.9 |
There's always something special when one of your favorite band releases a new album, don't you think? Well, now that special moment has come for me again, for the third time this year, and this time it's Sonata Arctica's turn. And I was really excited before putting this into my player, because once again I was stunned by the beautiful cover, damn, the covers are getting better and better, and I didn't think they could do a better one than "Winterheart's Guild", but damn, how wrong could a man be? Read more ›› |
Comments
Comments: 11
Visited by: 83 users
| Stigmatized .......... Posts: 3820  |
Well, the cover is excellent, that's for sure. As I mentioned, this album is not as memorable as their earlier efforts. I think it's underrated still. I would give it around a 7.5 myself.
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| Spyroid Rosetta Stoned Posts: 1023  |
Great review, I totally agree, though I'm not a big fan of old Sonata either (on reason is my problem with Finnish accents...). A dull album. Maybe 5.5/10 for me. Although the cover is easily top 10 ever, so I'll give the cover 11/10 
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| Dark Cornatus Powerslave Elite Posts: 4330  |
Good review bas, however, your rating doesnt match your review. Well actually i think that happened to me too when i reviewed Dragonforce, it must average out the numbers, but i see you entered 5 as your impression, which matches your review. I would rate it a 6/10. I would rate the album 4/10 had it not been for the ending of the album.... The only song i liked at the start was the keyboard instrumental, i agree there no talent, but it was pure catchy and cool. I find Wildfire to be better than most songs before it, yet its not a great song. White Pearl Black Oceans is one of my fav Sonata Arctica songs, is is more to their style, Shamandalie i thought was another good ballad by Sonata Arctica. Other than those mentions the rest of the songs were ordinary. I just like to say i think Sonata Arctica who were becoming bigger than Stratovarius at one point, flopped and lost alot of fans. I know all of my friends have gotten over them, including me.
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| Spyroid Rosetta Stoned Posts: 1023 |
Wow, there's a lot of ppl out there who doesn't like this album... I though it was totally loved. Agree with you other guys.
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| Dreamthief_89 Account deleted |
Dreamthief_89
Account deleted
It's sad that so many people doesn't like this album. At first I did not like it very much either, but after I had listened to it some more and read the lyrics I began to like it a lot. Sure, thay have chosen a differerent "path" this time, but the songs are more comlex and the style has grown since "Winterheart...". It's not so hard to understand why Tony Kakko wanted to try a different sound, after all. This is one of the albums that has tought me to look at it only as a chapter. Every chapter has something to tell. The best about the songs on "Reckoning Night" is that they are so damn good on stage! 
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| Lucas Mr. Noise Elite Posts: 13427  |
This is one of my favorites by them.. 
---- SLUDGE. DOOM. DEATH. Wait, what?  "The reason I'm running for president is because I can't be Bruce Springsteen." - Barack Obama
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| Talvi Posts: 825  |
Yeah, Suckata Craptica rules! \m/
---- My account on other musical pages: http://www.last.fm/user/Pozito/ http://rateyourmusic.com/~Talvi
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| Spyroid Rosetta Stoned Posts: 1023 |
Haha, this is a typicall "getting over" band... but they're actually talented musicians, so it's a bit of a waste ;P
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| Elio Red Nightmare Posts: 4920  |
Written by Talvi on 09.12.2006 at 12:29 LOL Suckata Craptica but they used to be good...
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| Uirapuru Liver Failure Posts: 2955  |
Quote: I'm also not a big fan of this album.. but ''Blinded No More'' and epecially the wonderful ''White Pearl, Black Oceans...'' makes me give this album some higher score
----  ---- member of the true crusade against old school heavy metal, early 80s thrash, NWOBHM, traditional doom, first and second wave black metal, old school death metal, US power metal, 70s prog rock and atmospheric doomsludgestoner. o/
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