The Ninth Hour

Sonata Arctica has been one of the most polarizing bands among its own fans in the past decade. It started with “Unia”, which was a power metal album with some extremely evident progressive metal elements. Then, rather than realize their fans didn’t enjoy the new direction, they released “The Days of Greys”, which was a progressive metal album with power metal elements. Then, they went even further down the rabbit hole, releasing “Stones Grow Her Name” which was barely a metal album, and more like a hard rock album with invisible power metal elements and country (This is not a typo and I didn’t have a stroke when writing this) elements. After came “Pariah’s Child”, which seemingly heard all the criticisms from the all the previous albums and finally managed to marry the progressive elements with the old school power metal elements.

So, with all this history, and all these sound and direction changes, what did “The Ninth Hour” come out as? Many people, including myself, were hoping that it would be close to “Pariah’s Child” and the possibility of that got a lot of fans excited. Hell, the first single from this album, “Life”, was something that sounded like it could have been on “Pariah’s Child”. Great dueling guitars at the beginning, a decent melody (even if Kakko’s performance is somewhat uninspired), a clear story; it was everything you could want to hear from the first single.

Then the album got released. “The Ninth Hour” might be the literal definition of trying to do the same thing twice. I thought nothing could beat Quiet Riot’s follow-up to “Metal Health”, “Condition Critical” in this sense, but Tony Kakko and the gang just might have accomplished it. Every slower song from this album tries to sound like “Love”, from the previous album and every fast song tries to sound like either “Blood” or “Running Lights”. The problem with this fact is that every song on this album is infinitely worse than the ones from its predecessor.

Songs like “Closure to an Animal”, “Candle Lawns” and “On the Faultline (Closure to an Animal)" are all boring and uninspired in both a lyrical sense as well as an instrumental sense. Nothing that caught your ear or drew you in from “Pariah’s Child” has managed to carry over. It’s so bland, for lack of a better term. Most everything from this album is so familiar, from the overused and completely over-powering keyboard riffs to the boring, droning rhythm guitar riffs. To be fair, some of the solos, both guitar, and keyboards, are fairly refreshing and have a certain amount of fluidity to them. But, they can’t save these songs. One minute of a five-minute song doesn’t make the song itself good, or even decent.

Now, the entire album isn’t bad. Songs like the previously mentioned “Life”, as well as the rockers “Among the Shooting Stars”, “Fly, Navigate Communicate” and “Rise A Night” all give a sense of urgency to the album; something that was desperately needed, considering the ladder three songs all come in a row. As good as these tracks may be, especially compared to the rest of the album, they’re only good because they have a nostalgic feel to them. “Rise A Night” sounds like something that could have been on “Winterheart’s Guild” or “Reckoning Night”. These songs aren’t the only ones you remember from this album because they do something new or engage you in some way, you remember them because they remind you of what Sonata used to be.

I will make special mention the sequel to the absolute epic masterpiece that is “White Pearl, Black Oceans”. It’s not a bad song but is nowhere near as good as the original. It gives a nice ending to the original song, even if it’s somewhat impossible, considering what was described in the first song. That water would’ve turned into concrete, man!

The production on this album is not anything to write home about. Having a band member (bassist Pasi Kauppinen) that can also act as your producer is convenient and frankly, cool. It helps with the entire recording process, from tracking Tommy’s ever-metronome-like drums to the forgettable guitars. It suddenly becomes less cool when said band member can’t produce well. Tommy’s snare lacks any power or impact, the bass drum sound seems to rise and fall in volume depending on the song, and rather than Elias’ guitar having some real grit to it, it just sounds limp and weak. It’s very crowded, which is bound to happen when you want the keyboards to be the most important part of the mix. Kakko’s vocals didn’t fall victim to this, as he recorded them at his own studio, but that doesn’t change that he sounds like he can’t be bothered to try on most songs.

“Pariah’s Child” was an album that took some getting used to for some people. It wasn’t the old Sonata that most people wanted, but it was pretty damn close and is generally looked at as such. “Pariah’s Child” grew on you and got better as you listened. This never happens with “The Ninth Hour”. The album stays boring and disappointing no matter how many times you listen to it. There is no magic, nothing that helps it elevate itself. Kakko claimed part of the reason “Pariah’s Child” was much closer to the original Sonata Arctica was because they had been rehearsing their first album, “Ecliptica” at the same time. So, why Kakko decided to take all the bad elements from “Unia” and add them to “Pariah’s Child”, is a mystery to everyone that put themselves through listening to “The Ninth Hour”.

In the glory days of the power metal revival, which for the uninitiated ran from around 1995 until about 2004, there was a fairly clear definition of what the style was and the direction it was heading. But as with any musical movement, saturation can eventually result in dilution via experimentation. This isn't to say that experimentation in and of itself is bad, for without it we would wither and die, but for every beneficial leap in stylistic evolution there is also the opportunity for a Frankenstein monster to reap havoc upon the village. While the full blame for the rather sizable downturn in quality of output that reared its head among several longstanding power metal acts that occurred between 2004 and 2008 can't be laid at one particular band, Sonata Arctica had the unique distinction of not only taking the most extreme nosedive in quality with their 2007 abortion Unia, but rivaled Edguy in their sheer stubbornness in refusing to see where they had found themselves and continuing to excrete similarly styled auditory rubbish for years on end.

To be fair, there was a gradual degree of improvement that culminated in the inferior (compared to their seminal offerings) but respectable previous offering Pariah's Child, which had salvaged some of the better moments of Reckoning Night. One would think that an album containing the sequel of one of the more impressive offerings of said album would hint at a continuation of this better direction, not to mention the band trotting out an updated version of their powerful debut outing Ecliptica, but The Ninth Hour sees Kakko and company having some different ideas. About the only thing that really separates this from the plodding with occasional moments of coasting and meandering that was this band's sad 2007 flop is a handful of elements lifted from other slightly less terrible successors that followed prior to 2014. The production is pristine to the point of drowning the ears in a sea of syrup, with the keyboards taking on a heavy degree of prominence, and the vocals being a tad bit more focused, but all of the other elements don't really manage to hit the mark, or any mark to be honest.

If the majority of the songs on this album could be summed up in a single word, it would be frustrating, and in the most monumental sense of the word. A fair degree of competence in both technique and emotive feel are articulated in coasting, mid-paced songs like "Closer To The Animal", "Life" and "Fairytale", specifically with regard to the flashy keyboards and Kakko's vocal character, but there is absolutely no sense of cadence or any hooks to speak of, just a stream of ideas that feel incomplete that flow out in the most banal way possible. There is a slight helping of faster attempts at the glorious sound of old, but they continually get bogged down in novelty moments and balladry, resulting in truly stilted and disjointed crappers like "Till Death's Done Us Apart" and somewhat animated yet directionless semi-speeders like "Fly, Navigate, Communicate". The only song on here that really manages to stay consistent is "Rise A Night", which functions as a slightly less memorable answer to "Flag In The Ground", itself a half-hearted attempt at visiting the pre-Unia days.

It is truly a sad statement that the best and most memorable thing to be included on this album is a Bryan Adams cover song, but the existing hooks in "Run To You" have a bit more to do with what power metal was prior to 2005 than anything else on this album. Perhaps it is just a bit of icing on this decrepit cake given that its 2007 forerunner also had a cover song as its crowning musical achievement. A number of fans have basically written Sonata Arctica off as a band that probably should have hung it up 10 years ago, and it is kind of hard to argue against this when this is what is passed off as their take on power metal. Truth be told, this isn't power metal, but more an extremely convoluted mishmash of power metal, progressive and hard rock, synth pop and some traces of a bad Broadway performance. Maybe the next album will be better, but the smart money is one waiting for the next Cain's Offering LP and leaving this sad shell of a band to wallow in their self-indulgent experimentation.

I have always had a hard time approaching Sonata Arctica's music. Their early years always sounded like a light version of Stratovarius to me. Their catchier tunes were so saccharine, fluffy and amorphous that I considered them worse than exchangeable radio pop music. The group's more experimental and progressive tracks sounded tiring, structureless and mismatched to me since instruments and vocals often didn't harmonize in my opinion. It's more by coincidence that I saw the group playing live three times in the past few years. In fact, I was always coming to see them because they were playing with another interesting band such as Leaves' Eyes, Nightwish and Xandria for example. Despite not being too fond of their style, I liked the band's energetic, intimate and sympathetic live performances and decided to give them another shot. Despite all its obvious flaws that have rightfully been mentioned in numerous reviews, The Ninth Hour somehow manages to transform its flaws into strengths and to sound appealing to me. It's not a masterpiece by any means but a calm, harmonious and intellectual release that European power metal fans should pick up.

Let's try to point out how Sonata Arctica manages to make its flaws work in its favor with three concrete examples. The first debatable track is already the opener ''Closer to an Animal''. When I first heard the song, I felt that the vocal melodies and the lead guitar melodies didn't harmonize at certain moments and sounded strangely out of tone. The vocals sound somewhat powerless and the dull production adds to this impression. I still think this track is a bad choice as an album opener. It neither opens the record with a powerful bang nor with a catchy hit. Songs like the classic up-tempo power metal stomper ''Rise a Night'' or the catchy ''Life'' would have been much better choices to open this album. Still, I didn't want to give up on the song and it ended up growing on me. The opener is a rather progressive track with ambitious lyrics, hypnotizing soundscapes and unusual song writing. It's actually quite a statement to open the album with a song that is that hard to digest. Sonata Arctica make it clear right from the start that they have their very own and unique sound and think out of the box. I respect the group's motives and since the song has enough atmosphere, depth and diversity, it ended up being one of my favorite tunes on this release.

A second example comes ahead with the second tune ''Life''. This song does so many thing that aren't hold in high regard. The melody lines are extremely soft, melodic and catchy which is quite unusual for metal music in general. Even in their own power metal genre, this track is outstanding in terms of commercial appeal. In addition to this, the song includes rather unusually life-affirming lyrics that come across quite awkwardly with strange passages such as ''Life is better alive''. If that wasn't enough, the entire song builds up towards a chorus that focuses on a happy sing-along part instead of actual lyrics. The entire track makes me think of a fluffy rose teddy bear with colored hearts drawn all over its soft plush that just needs to be hugged by a joyful toddler. No matter how hard I try, I just can't escape this song's comforting, hopeful and optimistic charm. The obtrusive chorus ends up being completely unforgettable, the joyous melodies get me every time and even the unusual lyrics are stuck on my mind because they are so particular.

A third example is the fact that The Ninth Hour almost entirely consists of balladesque tracks with the exceptions of the moodier ''Fairytale' and the powerful ''Rise A Night'' that end up being highlights on here because they provide some much needed energy to an otherwise quite soft record. The number of calm, harmonious and slow-paced tunes is almost overwhelming. Still, it's undeniable that the band simply does what it knows best and excels in this genre. This can be seen as predictability, repetition and standstill but in this case I see it as a band's rare awareness of its own strengths and limits. Even though a first listening experience of this ballad collection might be tiring, it turns out that most of the songs on The Ninth Hour show enough variation to stick out and convince in different manners. The folk-inspired ''We Are What We Are'' develops a smooth, epic and enchanting atmosphere with soothing vocals and floating keyboard sounds. The elegant, neoclassical and imaginative ''Till Death's Done Us Apart'' sounds like an inspired interpretation of a creative fairy tale. The mixture of uplifting melodies yet sorrowful lyrics in the very melodic ''Fly, Navigate, Communicate'' develop an intriguing contrast that unfolds its imaginative charm more and more with each spin.

In the end, Sonata Arctica manage to transform what seem to be obvious flaws into unique strengths on The Ninth Hour. This record definitely isn't for everybody but you can't get anything better if you're looking for smooth, melodic and enchanting European power metal these days. Aside of the unnecessary and overlong ''White Pearl, Black Oceans (Part II: By the Grace of the Ocean)'' and the album closer ''On the Faultline (Closure to an Animal)'' which is actually just a softer alternative version of the opener, this record includes nine songs that may take some time to open up but will unfold their magic if you bring some patience and appreciation for this genre. This is why these unique Finish magicians deserve a fair rating here.

On a closing side note, the Japanese bonus track ''The Elephant'' is one of the best tracks on the new record and comes along as an energizing up-tempo power metal track with meaningful lyrics about the madness of war. This track is a definite highlight on the record and might appeal to fans of the band's early years. Faithful fans should really get their hands on the Japanese version.

They should not write stuff anymore (run away, run away, run away)
Ratings are on the site and people think it is a bore
Made a change in style but can't (run away, run away, run away)
Get the acclaim that they once had
Fullmoon!

Okay, so maybe the above is a bit harsh; I just wanted to make a joke. But this album was a disappointment for me. I remember during the first playthrough of the album in the back of my head, I was thinking "It's okay, White Pearl Black Oceans II will make up for this." But ultimately, the band has done much better in the past, and this pales in comparison. Even for someone without any past experience of Sonata Arctica, this album probably didn't hit out of the ballpark.

Sonata Arctica really isn't the band one should compare to their past, anyways. They've changed so much in their style over the years that this website keeps receiving complaints and comments via reports on what kind of metal this band really is. So fine, I get it. They aren't going to make another Ecliptica or Silence or Winterheart's Guild. Nobody should really hope for a style they abandoned 12 years ago. You can't really know what Sonata Arctica is going to make next, so it's better not to expect a certain genre.

But I can't just not tell you the characteristics of the album, so what is it? Well, back in 2014, Sonata Arctica released Pariah's Child, which many saw as a return to the times when they made Unia, their first album that completely abandoned their fast-paced power metal image for a more progressive style. And The Ninth Hour seems to continue that return. But it continues another constant between them and Pariah's Child (and Ecliptica Revisited, I guess): the mixing is terrible. Some of the songs seem like they could have been much more notable if they had more of an "-oomph", like, say, a guitar that actually stood out! I get that Sonata Arctica are known for mystical keyboards, and I get that it sets up an atmosphere, but when the guitar is more of a background, with no noticeable riffs and very few solos (which often goes for the keyboards as well) it lacks the power a metal song needs to hold itself up. Tony Kakko's voice is very melancholic, which works sometimes, but he too also doesn't seem quite as energetic as he could be in most of his songs. If he put half the energy into this as he did for previous albums, the songs would be much more interesting and keep in my heart. But he doesn't, so the only thing notable is how he doesn't stand out, but blends in with sad keyboard melodies that are up front and center in terms of attention.

The songs do not necessarily have any catchy melody or something one can hold on to, either. I do like some songs on here, like "Life", "Fairytale", "Till Death's Done Us Apart", and "White Pearl Black Oceans Part II", but I don't necessarily remember the middle two that well, and I can only remember the first because it was the only single I listened to (I don't get why so many others liked "Closer to an Animal", it was one of the most boring things I have ever heard) and I only remembered "White Pearl Black Oceans Part II" because it was literally the only reason I considered listening to this album.

Speaking of "White Pearl Black Oceans Part II", this song, in my mind, has the worst story of any Sonata Arctica song to date. Yeah, its scope was big, it was memorable, if very dull (except for the killer solos Klingenberg and Viljanen performed) and if Kakko got out of the monotony his voice had and put in more enthusiasm, it could have been a song I liked more. But it had dull spots, which made me focus more on the story. There I realized that Kakko probably did not know what to write for this song, so he just ended up taking the storyline of WPBO Part I and giving it a happy ending where (SPOILERS:) the lighthouse keeper survives, the girl survives, and they leave, with the guy being happier with his life. This actually really pissed me off. WPBO (the first one) is morally and emotionally conflicting, and the song ends leaving you with anger, pity, and shock that the lighthouse keeper committed suicide after everyone, including himself blamed him for something he had no control over. Tying up the genius of WPBO with a happy ending where everyone lives is terrible.

So what about the rest of the songs? "Till Death's Done Us Apart" had an okay theme, so did "Among the Shooting Stars", everything else was shallow and mostly related to love or global warming, which is honestly a new low for me. I would never expect any band to blatantly blurt out "we're anti-global warming" (just skimming the lyrics on this site shows how obvious it was). I don't even think Christian metal bands are as blatant about Jesus as this band is about global warming. I like the idea, guys, but I don't know if you're cut out for social commentary, and if you think you are, make a little more subtle and artistically appealing, please? Also, I don't know if this was intentional, but there are way too many ballads. I guess they were trying to add them because it appeals to the "destruction of nature" theme, but very few albums can actually get away with adding so many ballads. So this becomes the biggest flaw of the album - it's so boring that you forget the songs quickly.

The only other song I liked a decent amount besides what I said 3 paragraphs ago was the bonus track, Run to You, just because it was a change of pace I desperately needed (even though it was alarmingly close to stuff from Stones Grow Her Name. But this album isn't really an album you can listen to because it's metal and you feel a need to mosh. This is more like "I'm hiking in the mountains on a snowy night and I want something to listen to" good. It can't get you pumped up, it's not made to show scope or talent, and it's not very inventive and doesn't have too many interesting stories to tell. The good songs aren't great, and are easily overshadowed by older works of both the band themselves and other musicians. But you can listen to it while walking through the woods and be content with the songs. Besides that, this album really has no worth to the average metalhead.

Favorite songs: Life (for catchiness, though the writing is a bit empty), Fairytale (because it's the closest thing to Reckoning Night-style songs you can find on here), Till Death's Done Us Apart (it's kind of creative and has more energy than most of the songs).

Least favorite songs: Everything else EXCEPT White Pearl Black Oceans Part II and Run to You (which is a bonus track :P)

This latest album from Sonata Arctica, as expected, has been polarizing – some fans just hate their new albums and want nothing else but a return to their very early style. I have liked all of their albums to varying degrees, though, and I think this new one, The Ninth Hour, is a stunning and awe-inspiring listen, full of shades of dark and light and drama and intrigue.

They've really outdone themselves with this, especially as I thought their previous album Pariah's Child was such a masterclass in poppy, accessible songwriting and powerful melodies. How could they top that, I wondered? Apparently the answer was to do a complete 180 and put out maybe the most epic and complex work they've done to date.

What strikes me about this album is that it's very well balanced and paced. There are uptempo rockers and speedy power metal tunes and ballads in about equal measure, and not always separated song by song – some of them shift between speedy double-bass runs and flowing guitar melodies to wistful balladry within the same song, adding a unified and cohesive feel to the whole album. This is an album of peaks and valleys, with emotional crests and songs that flow into one another very nicely. The textures and melodies are excellent – sorrowful, rich and addictive.

Hell – the album opens with basically the world ending on “Closer To An Animal,” with its atypical lurching melodies and apocalyptic global warming themes. It's a very different, cool song and I like how dour and dramatic it sounds – when I heard this for the first time I was immediately fucking fascinated. I thought it boded well for the full album – it sounded like a band with big ideas and big themes. And I was right – on further songs like the complex “Fairytale” with its cynical political theme and epic choir-based, multi-layered approach or “Fly, Navigate, Communicate” with its fluid, ever-changing structure from celestial, snowy balladry to speedy power metal, the band sounds ferociously on-point. “Til Death Do Us Part” is a busy, melodious mini-opera of the style they've become known for in their later days and “Rise A Night” is a classic speedster but with a more melancholic edge from Tony Kakko's vocals – a great song.

There are a lot of ballads on here, but they're all paced well, they all sound different from one another and the melodies are gorgeous and achingly beautiful – “We Are What We Are” is particularly heart-rending. “White Pearl, Black Oceans II – By The Grace Of The Ocean” is the album epic and it's maybe the album's most well-written song, with a great build up, a spellbinding chorus and lots of very catchy, memorable refrains throughout. “On The Faultline” closes out the album, a sparse, chilly pop tune.

Lyrically this has several songs about global warming and climate change, and even those not about that end up fitting into a loose theme in a way – I don't know how much it was intentional, but I like the way the songs about doomed love and climate change mesh together into this vaguely poetic, weirdly romantic flow as the album goes along. I like that this is music actually "about" something and Tony seemed to have a lot he wanted to say on here, especially with regards to the global warming stuff and the political talk on "Fairytale" - in spite of the Engrish at times, the band says a lot of meaningful things on this album. I appreciate the lyrical vision and message.

This is a great fucking album. It's full of very memorable songs and melodies, and it fits together marvelously well. There are a ton of layers and little complexities and I notice new things about it all the time – it's certainly not something you understand after just one listen. In a time when most power metal bands at their level are treading water and putting out half-assed albums as an excuse to keep touring, Sonata Arctica have really outdone themselves with this.

I'd say this is the album that any Sonata fan could love, but obviously that isn't true. But I do think it has every facet of their sound played up and every reason why they're so good can be found here. The Ninth Hour is an album full of beautiful, harrowing, destructive melody, and I think it's excellent.

Now I'm just pissed off. Since 2009, our favourite Finns have been floundering stylistically, though ironically enjoying success at the hands of Nuclear Blast. 2012's "Stones Grow Her Name" was a messy affair that divided fans more than ever. 2014's "Pariah's Child" was far from perfect, but showed potential for a return to glory. So what does 2016 have to offer? "The Ninth Hour" has some beautiful artwork, some mystical song titles, and oh! There's that wolf again! So, here goes...

...zzz...wha? Huh? Shit! Fell asleep and missed most of the album! Seventh track "Rise A Night" woke me up because it had a slightly higher energy level than a narcoleptic sloth. Seriously - why is this album so fucking boring?! You'll have to forgive the expletives, because there's going to be a lot. I'm not among the naysayers who dismissed this without a fair trial. At least I bought the CD and gave it a chance. But now I want my 65 minutes back. Jesus christ, 65 minutes? It feels twice as long, as every track is drawn out beyond its welcome. No exaggeration - every track. Let's try and pick some specifics here...

Issue #1: the production. The metallic crunch of the guitars has been toned down and pushed back in the mix; both bass and drums are far too loud; the keyboards never sit still - they seem to wander around outside the recording studio; and Tony Kakko's vocals are almost inaudible at times. Basically - EVERYTHING is in the wrong place. Great start, lads.

Issue #2: the lyrics. Sonata Arctica have always embodied humour. Such masterpieces as "X Marks The Spot" and "Peacemaker" were borne out of a sense of fun. But considering the seriousness of the subject matter on this new album, lines like "Sir, you are urinating on me" and "I've drawn a smiley face on the moon" are sorely misplaced. But let's not forget such poetic brilliance as "ding dong ding dong", "who's the walrus?", "hey-yay!", and of course the incredibly annoying "lalala la lalalalalalalaaa!". In a nutshell - total fucking tripe.

Issue #3: The songwriting. Kakko and co. have completely forgotten how to write memorable tunes anymore. Being 'progressive' works for certain bands of this sub-genre, but S.A. need their riffs; their solo sections; their catchy choruses! I've heard this CD four times through and I cannot remember a damn thing other than that fucking "lalalala" in "Life"!. Every song (bar one) starts at a humdrum pace - either with simplistic 4/4 rhythms from the kit, or dreary chords from the keys. By the time the half-arsed ballad "Candle Lawns" draws to an unsatisfying close, I'm ready to snap this disc - but for shit's sake, there's still 3 more! And that's not including the (admittedly quite cool) cover of Bryan Adams' "Run To You", if you acquired the digipak. Otherwise, "On The Faultline" is the single most miserable way to close an album.

Issue #4: The energy. "The Ninth Hour" contains none of the passion and drive that made albums like "Ecliptica" so exciting. Tony Kakko sounds lifeless and bored, much like his current audience, and the pace rarely moves faster than a phlegmatic snail. Listen to 2001's "Weballergy". Got the gist? Now try "Closer to an Animal". That's how much this band has dipped in energy over the years. They no longer sound hungry and motivated, they are tired and self-indulgent.

So what does "The Ninth Hour" get right? The cover art is undeniably gorgeous. "Rise A Night" is the only track that even hints at being the S.A. we fell in love with. It's nice to hear the "White Pearls, Black Oceans" theme recur one last time. And "Life" has a section which at least resembles a chorus. Still not forgiving the "lalalala" though. Twats.

Sonata Arctica's 2001 album "Silence" is one of my all-time favourites. The energetic tempos; the celestial keyboards; the hymnal choruses; the excitement...the passion...sadly all gone. I've officially stopped calling this band my 'favourite Finns', in favour of the infinitely more impressive Stratovarius. I feel almost personally insulted, after giving them the benefit of the doubt 7 years ago. Having supported this band for their entire career, it's both sad and rage-inducing to hear them reach such a low that I feel compelled to abandon them. But so be it. There are many more European power metal acts making an impact. Farewell Sonata Arctica, it's been...turbulent.

"Lalala la lalalalalalalaaa!"

Fuck off.

Sonata Arctica have always been a dividing band. Even during their early years, for everyone who loved them, there seemed to be an equal number of people who dismissed them as a Stratovarius clone, or just didn't like the 'flower power' music that they so often found themselves categorised as. I won't try to sugar the pill - I am one of the people in the camp of early Sonata. Silence is one of my favourite albums of all time, and the other three surrounding it aren't that far behind. Despite that, I'm not so easy to dismiss them past their first four albums. Unia has some truly fantastic material on it, and every album past that usually has something redeemable about it.

Those redeemable features are few and far between on The Ninth Hour.

After three listens of the album, I find myself only being able to recall that amount of highlights from the album. Let's start chronologically, and discuss each of the three highlights of the album, before we delve into why this album just doesn't work.

First: I really enjoyed the 'lalala' section of Life. I really enjoy those kinds of sections in songs, and I actually that it brought the song up enough to separate it from the vast, vast amount of mid paced, interchangeable filler on the album that this song would otherwise fall in the category of.

Second: Rise a Night shows signs of being a really, really good song. The tempo picks up for one of the few times on the album. But once the initial surprise of actually hearing energy wears off - the song isn't really all that special. It's a play by numbers token fast song. One that was done much better on their early albums, and even on Pariahs Child, with Running Lights. It's the best song on here - but that isn't saying a lot about the song.

Third: The resurfacing of the main melody from the original White Pearl, Black Oceans is fantastic. And then they ruin it by changing it. Because it's a sequel, the melody has to change, I guess. Well - it's still a good melody. But if it was better, they would have just done it on the original song in the first place.

So, what the album does wrong. First, and most importantly - it's a boring, unorganised mess. Every song on here, with the exception of Rise a Night and White Pearls II are so interchangeable that it becomes almost tedious. The songs are so keyboard heavy, in a bad way, that they sound like lullabies. And they ALL over stay their welcome. Slow tempos, drawn out sections and just boring, repetitive structures and playing remove any and all semblance of good music from the album.

Beyond that, the album sounds completely uninspired and boring. No matter how bad Days of Greys and Stones Grow Her Name are, at least they had some drive and passion behind them. Maybe they wanted to experiment at the time, and they gave it their all in search for the new sound that they wanted, and it reflected in the music. Maybe, for someone who wants albums like Silence, the albums comes across as bad - but there might be other people who really appreciate the experimentation into different genres that the band found. This, though. There is no energy or drive. It seems like the band put out a metal album for the sake of it. Because that's 'what their fans want', right? But the band doesn't want to play metal. Or at the very least, Tony doesn't.

Sonata Arctica has always been the Tony Kakko show. And Tony has run his course in the metal scene.If anyone had any hope for Sonata after the 'not bad to good' reception that Pariahs Child had, it's all been sapped after this travesty. This is the worst album Sonata have ever released. Boring, uninspired, void of any creativity or musical expression and a frightening sign as to what might be to come from the band.

It's possible to delve away from the basic power metal formula, expand, and still write a good album. Compare Eternal or Nemesis from Stratovarius to their earlier works. Or, compare the works of former Sonata guitarist Jani Liimatainen's work in Cain's Offering to his work in Sonata Arctica. They don't follow the same formulas, but expand on them and grow to change their sound. Tony could learn a thing or two from his former bandmates and fellow countrymen.

Let's make everything clear at once: The Ninth Hour is purely, and I stress purely, post-Unia musical material. We all know that Sonata Arctica began its musical adventure with a power metal masterpiece, when all the members weren't even outside their teens, Ecliptica, and later evolved their sound into a slower, more melancholic blend of power/progressive metal which managed to let the band strip off of any accusation of "sounding like Stratovarius" - with masterpieces such as Winterheart's Guild and Reckoning Night, the Finnish ensemble seemed to have found their own personal path.

Everything came to an end with an experimental, quasi-progressive (and no more power at all) album like Unia in 2007, and the successors have always been more or less relying on the same sound. The Ninth Hour, in fact, seems to have been recorded between 2007 and 2014 and some tracks really sound like that they were taken off of The Days of Grays (like "Closer to an Animal", one of the worst openers ever, slow and without a single bit of catchiness) and others sound more like the lighter, progressive/hard rock effort Stones Grow Her Name (like "Till Death's Done Us Apart", where Tommy Portimo keeps on playing his annoying slow drumming under Elias Viljanen's three power chords repeated throughout the whole song).

And actually, here we are already at a conclusion: Viljanen outside Sonata Arctica has demonstrated to be a great guitarist, a solid virtuoso player who thanks to literally no rational explanations is forced by mainman/vocalist Tony Kakko to play only power chords, or palm-muted accompaniments. It seems that from Unia onwards Sonata Arctica employed only a rhythm guitarist, and this can't be accepted if you want to play power metal (or try to explore progressive rock/metal fields!). One can barely hear ten seconds of guitar solo on "We Are What We Are" - one of the very few tracks that could gain a 5/10 thanks to some nice ideas, a sort of power ballad with experimental progressive/doom droplets - or in the middle of the boring, definitely too long suite "White Pearl, Black Oceans (Part II: By the Grace of the Ocean)", which presents just some glimpse of orchestrations, but everything (from the vocals to the drumming) is definitely too slow and boring, no choruses at all, no remarkable refrains, not a single successful riff. And apart from these small bits of guitars, after three albums in which guitars are almost vanished (and on Unia too of course, but that's another theme - and another guitarist) we are in front of another rock/metal album with no solos and virtually no riffs at all.

Here comes the second problem: Kakko has finished any bit of good, new, fresh ideas. He - obviously - has long abandoned his high-pitched, power-metal-singing of Ecliptica and on masterpiece such as "My Selene" or "The Cage", but still somehow manages to use well his voice, often "saving" with his peculiar interpretation songs that otherwise would be completely anonymous - just try and listen to "Fly, Navigate, Communicate ", which is probably the only track here with a recognizable refrain and a shorter duration (the seven-minutes-long "Fairytale" is quite difficult to listen to the end, between power chords repeated over and over and an annoying double bass with little variations). But if Kakko has to save everything, that really means that musically there are no more ideas left - and, if this wasn't enough, two piano/voice-driven tracks like "Candle Lawns" (which reminds me of an open plagiarize of Guns N' Roses' "November Rain" and The Beatles' "Let It Be", but anyways) and "On the Faultline (Closure to an Animal)" clearly show that Kakko's voice can't do much if the songwriting is completely worthless.

If guitarist Viljanen and drummer Portimo are by far the worst musicians here - not their fault, of course, they don't write anything.. - the only good things come from bassist Pasi Kauppinen and keyboardist Henrik Klingenberg: actually, piano and keyboards in general are really the most interesting things; "Life", which is only slightly more beautiful than the opener, shines in the dark thanks to Klingenberg's great melodic playing and when he's allowed to show signs of a solo, like in "White Pearl, Black Oceans (Part II: By the Grace of the Ocean)" and most notably in "Fly, Navigate, Communicate", he really captures the listener's attention.. even if solos here are quite short, nothing compared to the pre-Unia (or that majestic one on "Paid in Full"!) ones, but still there's something to listen to. Oh, on a side note: I won't be pitiless on these album's lyrics; sincerely, Kakko should start writing in his native tongue - how can we seriously listen to childish choruses after lines like "life is better alive"?!

The last argument is actually the heaviest: over eleven songs, there is not even a single catchy power metal track, an anthem, something that sticks in your head. Nothing that won't fade off our minds after ten minutes. Kakko, after his last remarkable work - 2004's Reckoning Night - has managed to put into the successive four albums two kind of catchy tracks: the first type was a "recycling" of songs written in the past or for other musicians - just think of the awesome "Flag in the Ground", a 2009 re-recording of a song that dates back to the '90s, or of "Losing My Insanity", originally written by Kakko for Ari Koivunen and later re-recorded with Sonata Arctica for their 2012 album Stones Grow Her Name. If the other tracks were often experimental progressive/power metal/rock things, almost always forgettable, at least every album had still its great power metal anthems.

The other type of song that kept on saving Kakko's songwriting after Reckoning Night was something like "let's try to put together some notes around a great, catchy, melodic refrain" - I'm thinking about "Only the Broken Hearts (Make You Beautiful)", or "The Wolves Die Young ": the songs themselves aren't that good, but at least they had great choruses. The Ninth Hour has literally nothing of this: no remarkable refrains, no interesting solos, no riffs of any kind; it really sounds like a collection of b-sides of the last four albums, and this points clear to me that Kakko has no more ideas as a songwriter.

Overall, only four tracks are somehow listenable while the other ones are boring, too long, monotonous, with no direction, catchiness, nothing. And the "good" tracks, still, suffer from many limits: "Fairytale" could have been great, but it becomes boring being seven-minutes long; "Rise a Night" - which sounds much like "Running Lights" from Pariah's Child, but it's not by far the most shocking self-plagiarism.. - has some nice ideas too, starts with a good keyboard pattern on a fast tempo and has interesting bits of vocals, choruses and guitar parts, but in the end leaves nothing durable in mind. With all this said and done, The Ninth Hour proves to be Sonata Arctica's worst release ever and leaves few expectations for the future, if this is Kakko's finest songwriting as of 2016.