Letters from the Labyrinth

It’s a crying shame to think ‘Letters From The Labyrinth’ could be the final TSO offering. Considering Paul’s death, it most likely will be, but it feels like he was losing interest here a little bit anyway, considering Savatage mastermind Jon Oliva has writing credits on more songs here than he has had on any TSO album thus far. That’s a good thing in my book, as this is a lot more animated than the Disney-core Gorgonzola that was 2009’s overloaded double album ‘Night Castle’. This one sounds a lot more like their best work, 2000’s criminally forgotten ‘Beethoven’s Last Night’. It has a lot of second-era Savatage to it, featuring tons of big, boisterous synths, tender pianos, groovy guitars, and vocal lines that just scream Paul O’Neill. It’s darker, heavier, and more progressive than ‘Night Castle’ and pretty much everything they’ve done since ‘Beethoven’s Last Night’, so it’s actually probably a good album to start with if you’re new to the magic of Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

All TSO albums contain a mix of neoclassical metal instrumentals, heartfelt ballads, and kicky rock songs, and ‘Letters From The Labyrinth’ is no different, except it begins with a string of heavy, intense symphonic metal tunes, most of the them instrumental, that really carry that ‘Wake Of Magellan’ vibe. Opener ‘Time And Distance (The Dash)’ starts with some huge choir vocals doing Paul’s usual thing before dropping into a fantastic Oliva riff that would’ve fit ‘Edge Of Thorns’ like a glove. ‘The Night Conceives’ is another tune with a grinding Oliva riff that again, recalls some of the coolest moments of 90s Savatage. ‘Who Am I’ does the same thing before grinding to a halt to allow more gang vocals to work their magic. There’s a much more active, dynamic feel to this album that has Jon Oliva’s fingerprints all over it. It’s also pretty short at fifty-two minutes, making it the most concise TSO album thus far.

Some tunes aren’t as good as others. I’m not so hot on ‘Forget About The Blame’ and the reprise of it at the end with Lzzy Hale, as it just sounds like a Halestorm song on a TSO album. The story here is a bit convoluted, too. It’s related to the one from ‘Night Castle’ but told through comic book panels in the booklet, certainly offering something different. ‘Letters From The Labyrinth’ feels like an album that Jon wrote for a story Paul came up with as an afterthought, but that’s what makes it so cool. It has a very strong Savatage feel, especially the ‘Wake Of Magellan’ and ‘Dead Winter Dead’ era. There are no counterpoint vocals, which is a shame, but tunes like ‘Time And Distance’, ‘Prometheus’, and the classic Oliva-shuffle of ‘The Night Conceives’ makes all of it worth it. One of TSO’s more fantastical and loudest releases for sure, and if it’s the last one we’ll get, it’s a very cool one to close out the legacy.