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Revolution Renaissance > New Era > Reviews > kluseba
Revolution Renaissance - New Era

Quantity therapy - 48%

kluseba, August 1st, 2011

After the split of Stratovarius and a true soap opera between the remaining members and Timo Tolkki, the Finnish guitar hero hectically presented his new project, released the material written for the Stratovarius record that was finally never released and wanted to prove the world the high quality of his song writing, his ability to have an open mind for a new project and his strength to create a power metal super-group within several months only.

What came out is a horribly weak compilation record with three different singers and many guest musicians that I usually like but who sing mostly without power and emotion on this release. I'm especially disappointed with Tobias Sammet who is a big hope for the power metal scene but who rather headed for rock and roll music at that time and failed to sing those power metal tracks on here with conviction. Even the controversially discussed legend Michael Kiske has recently performed with better skills on several projects.

But what I need to mention to the defence of those musicians is that the song writing is truly horrible and on a same level as the two "Elements" records from Stratovarius. The songs are mostly short and focus on cheesy and catchy choruses but there is not one emotional guitar solo, one progressive keyboard passage, one outstanding track to find on here. The best song is "Keep the flame alive" because of its calm and beautiful opening and closure and a good job of Michael Kiske and "I did it my way" would have been a good and more successful single as the last Stratovarius contributions from Tolkki were. A part of those two songs, tolkki delivers us boring filler tracks without any inspirations that would have created one of the worst Stratovarius albums ever but maybe still something better than the horrible "Polaris" record that the band eventually released. Nevertheless, the split was necessary and the only way out for both sides even if the first results for both sides were heavily disappointing.

The short living Revolution Renaissance project was something like a therapy for Timo Tolkki to come back with Symfonia recently and it was important for him to release all this music and change his mind with workaholic tendencies. All three albums rather offer quantity than quality though and even if this first album might be something very important and personal for Tolkki, it surely is a pretty heavy disappointment for most of his fans and not a record worth being purchased. It eventually is the worst album of the band and anybody should jump to the other two releases if he or she wants to check out a real band and not a boring compilation project.