Tobi, Tobi, Tobi - I had had such high hopes for this, the third
edition of your side-project Avantasia. And when you then
delivers the weakest link to the chain so far, then it saddens me a
little bit, but only a little because this is still great and classy
power metal like we know and love from the writing pen of yours...
"The Scarecrow" is more commercial than its predecessors and
displays once more Tobias Sammet's flair for writing catchy tunes
with balls and power. The songs are all easy on the ear, and some of
the compositions might not exactly be some of his strongest - take
the rather simple 'The Toy Master', which only survives due to a
brilliant vocal performance from Alice Cooper. Some of the
adventurous and flamboyant ingredients have been left out; this is
more a case of taking the safe road rather than taking a chance...
The vocal performers are what make this album great and they do all
deliver a great job bringing life to Tobias' song universe. A
magical and theatrical universe inhabited by a very fine selection
of commercial power metal songs.
Good one!
