I will be the first to admit that I have always considered Stratovarius to be major pioneers of neoclassical influenced power metal. I fell in love with virtually every album of theirs almost immediately after hearing them. They all always had an over abundance of guitar hooks, flashy solos, intricate keyboard parts, soaring vocals, and extremely memorable choruses. Their only snag before Timo Tolkki departed I felt was their self titled album. I don't necessarily hate all of it, but it was definitely an attempt to try something different. After Tolkki left I still stood by the band and continued to check out all of their releases, but each album seemed to be missing something. Each has their fair share of enjoyable tracks and everyone seems to be hailing Mattias as a superior guitarist to Tolkki and that Nemesis is the best album they've ever recorded, but I guess I just don't see what everybody else is seeing. Although I must admit I enjoy most out of their past three albums there are a lot of aspects to it that I can't overlook.
First of all I feel as though the album doesn't flow properly, as in the track listing could probably be better rearranged. It takes me 4 or 5 tracks before I finally get to some I thoroughly enjoy. Tracks like Unbreakable to me are missing what gained the band critical acclaim to begin with. The main guitar riffs, like many throughout their past three albums come off as being a lot more distorted, less memorable, and often less complex. Unbreakable's riffs are memorable, but to me in a very stripped down way that I feel abandons a lot of their neoclassical roots. Their first video of the album, Halcyon Days, also has moments where I begin to question the direction the band is taking. The keyboard intro is extremely industrial sounding at times and is very lacking in composition as many of Jens' other incredible passages of the past and there are a couple other songs I can say this about as well. The most positive part of the first part of the album has to do with Kotipelto's vocal lines. His voice still sounds rather strong in the recording, and any shred of what has made them enjoyable and memorable to me lies within his contributions.
There are still visions of greatness on this album though. Fantasy has a very nice and clean keyboard intro and one of the most memorable choruses of the album. However I still feel that a lot of the guitar work is very simplistic. Castles in the Air suffers from a similar fate. The chorus is quite nice, but I still feel the guitar is quite lacking. By far the strongest track on the album is Dragons. It is one of the few tracks where it appears like they are even the same band that created albums as great as Episode, Visions, and Destiny. There are a lot of layers to the vocals of the chorus and the song all around just has a really happy and positive vibe. Their ballads have always been one of their strong suits to me and If the Story is Over doesn't disappoint either, very clean and emotional sounding and placed quite nicely towards the end of the album.
It has taken me a while to figure out what it is I haven't liked about each of the past three albums, and its not completely on the shoulders of Mattias's guitar playing, a lot of it is on his songwriting ability. I've come to find that the songs I've like the least were written by him. He just doesn't seem to have the ability to write memorable hooks like Tolkki did, which was what drew me to them in the first place. My favorite tracks over their recent albums have ironically all be written by Jens. He understands the composition of what makes the band great and sticks to writing songs that fit that mold, yet seems to write the least amount of their material. Another thing that many don't seem to notice about Nemesis is the lack of their classic lineup rhythm section for the first time in years. Jorg Michael is an incredible drummer and is always produced amazingly. The same could be said for Jari's bass parts from their classic albums. Lorri and Rolf, although competent musicians seem to be lacking something that the classic lineup once had, or it may just be that there is a noticeable lack of crispness in the drum and bass production.
I will admit that Nemesis is the best album they have come up with since Tolkki's departure, but it is missing many of the elements that helped make them who they are. It has slightly less filler than Polaris and Elysium, but still definitely has its fair share. Most of all it is missing clean guitar hooks in my opinion, but I am starting to believe that a lot of people like this album so much because it is considerably less neoclassical and stripped down and gritty power metal. Although it is by no means the worst thing they ever done I feel that it doesn't deserve to be mentioned alongside Episode through Infinite or even Dreamspace as being the best album they've ever recorded