Band:	Visions Of Atlantis
Album:	Cast Away
Style:	Symphonic metal
Release date:	November 2004

01. Send Me A Light
02. Cast Away
03. Lost
04. Realm Of Fantasy
05. Pharaoh's Repentance
06. Winternight
07. State Of Suspence
08. Lemuria
09. Last Shut Of Your Eyes
+ Lost (video)

- Symphonic Nightwish Metal?
- Well, I'll start this review with explaining why I chose to call this Symphonic Nightwish Metal. The reason why I putted Nightwish in there is because this is so close to Nightwish you can get without being the band itself. So if you hate Nightwish, turn away, I guarantee you, you won't like this either.

Austria has grown a lot lately but it's almost only symphonic/gothic bands that have come, bands like Darkwell, Edenbridge and Visions of Atlantis.
If you heard the latest two then you know that all of them are in one way or another very influenced by Nightwish, but Visions of Atlantis new album "Cast Away" is the closest one so far.
Nicole's voice is so freaky close to what Tarja's voice used to be, when she sung Operatic; it's from time to time very hard to hear any difference between Nicole and early Tarja.
But also the male vocals, the new guy Mario Plank, sounds like a mix between Tony Kakko (without the accent) in Sonata Arctica and another guy, that I just can't remember the name on.
Plus that there is a lot of keyboards here too, maybe that Tuomas is taking a bit more space in the music than Miro Holly does, but Visions of Atlantis music is still very keyboard-driven.

The album starts with the track "Send Me a Light" a pretty mid-paced song, with a little speedier chorus, but here you'll have a chance to acquaintance with both the new members, Mario - male singer and Miro - keyboarder. But the song in general is not that good, there are just too much of Nightwish in it, it's just Mario's little special voice that saves the song from being too bad.

I really fell for Visions of Atlantis when I heard their debut, "Eternal Endless Infinity", songs like "Lovebearing Storm, "Mermaid's Wintertale" & "Seduced Like Magic" is just brilliant songs, and Nicole's voice was impossible not to love. But now for the new album she has lost weight (I don't think that has anything to do with her voice) and her voice is just to much alike Tarja's operatic voice, that's too bad, since she was so damn good on the last album.

After the first song, the remaining eight will just swish away, containing much operatic female vocals and those special male vocals and much keyboards, all the album feels like a tribute with only unreleased songs from Nightwish.
I really pity what's happen to this young and very talented band, I really do. But I haven't given up hope on them, I really hope they'll rise on nine and release a better third album and maybe get the feedback they really deserves, but too do that, they'll need to move away from this Nightwish sounds and try to develop something own from the sound of the debut.

Check Out: "Lost" maybe the only song that's in anyway better than any else.