Stratovarius

TheMercenary said:
On the Elements Part 1 and Part 2, my favorite songs are "Eagleheart", "Soul Of A Vagabond", "Find Your Own Voice", "Learning To Fly", "Stratofortress", "Elements", "I Walk To My Own Song", "I'm Still Alive", "Awaken The Giant", "Know The Difference", "Dreamweaver" and "Liberty". :)
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I'm not a fan of Liberty. Replace that with Alpha & Omega and you have all of my favorites there. :)

I'm hoping that they'll resurrect one of those deep cuts for the upcoming tour - I'll be there at the first show.
 
After a few listens, this feels like a really strong album. I'm not sure why I haven't listened more to Stratovarius, because every I put them on I love what I hear.
 
The new album has a bonus song called ''Heroes'' (not to be confused with their great demo from 2008 of the same name).

I like it. Great riff, melodies, verses and pre-chorus. The chorus is good too. I would have added it in the album.

 
Pretty exciting news from Tolkki's camp. The early days lineup of Stratovarius will be reuniting under the name "Timo Tolkki's Strato". The following is from facebook:

PRESS RELEASE:

They started it all 34 years ago...The Dreamspace lineup of Stratovarius has reformed, returning under the moniker TIMO TOLKKI'S STRATO. Featuring Timo Tolkki (vocals & guitar), Tuomo Lassila (drums), and Antti Ikonen (keyboards), these members recorded the classic Fright Night, Twilight Time, Dreamspace and Fourth Dimension albums. Released in 1994, Dreamspace was the last Stratovarius album to have Timo Tolkki on lead vocals and includes such fan favorites as "Chasing Shadows", "Hold On To Your Dream", "We Are The Future" and "Wings Of Tomorrow". Tolkki recorded his vocals for the Fourth Dimension album demos before deciding to focus on guitar only and recruited Timo Kotipelto as vocalist. Fourth Dimensionincluded a number of standout tracks including "Against The Wind", "Distant Skies", "Galaxies" and "Twilight Symphony".

In the summer 2022 Timo Tolkki, Tuomo Lassila and Antti Ikonen met to discuss ideas to reform the original line up, deciding to call themselves “Timo Tolkki’s Strato”. In all secrecy, they have rehearsed in Tuomo’s garage (real back to the roots!) since January 2023.This reconstituted lineup has signed a deal with Warner Music Japan, and is currently recording their debut album titled Return To Dreamspace to be released on 27.10.2023, preceded by the single “(Is this the) Brave New World?". A Japanese Tour is planned for spring 2024, and Timo Tolkki will visit Japan in November 2023 to promote the album -- his first time there since 2007. Tours of Latin America and Europe are also in the works. In concert the band will be performing songs from Return To Dreamspace, as well as from the Stratovarius albums, Fright Night,Twilight Time, and Dreamspace.

Eric Cerda, the manager of Timo Tolkki, describes the music as "sounding like the classic Dreamspace era but updated for the 2020's. Fans of melodic Power Metal -- a genre that these guys pretty much defined -- will love the new songs of Timo Tolkki's Strato, with fans of early Stratovarius being especially pleased.”

Tuomo Lassila formed Stratovarius in Helsinki 1984, and is responsible together with the original guitar player Staffan Stråhlman for the band's name Stratovarius. One year later Timo Tolkki joined the band. Stratovarius released their debut album Fright Night (1989) through CBS Finland. From that started one of the biggest success stories in the history of melodic metal. They defined what is currently known as “Power Metal” with albums like Fright Night (1989), Twilight Time (1993), Dreamspace (1994) and Fourth Dimension (1995).

Timo Tolkki wrote more than 100 songs for the band before leaving the group to embark on a successful solo career back in 2008, and is responsible for writing such Power Metal anthems like “Black Diamond”, “Hunting High and Low”, “Speed of Light”, “Paradise”, “Forever” and “Destiny”. More than 4 million copies of Tolkki-era Stratovarius albums have been sold.

For more information visit:

www.stratoworld.fi
www.facebook.com

Timo Tolkki's Strato

Timo Tolkki's Strato. 26 likes · 1 talking about this. They started it all 34 years ago...The "Dreamspace" lineup of Stratovarius has reformed!
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www.instagram.com

Official Timo Tolkki's Strato (@official_timo_tolkkis_strato) • Instagram photos and videos

17 Followers, 8 Following, 1 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from Official Timo Tolkki's Strato (@official_timo_tolkkis_strato)
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www.tolkki.art

Home - shop - The Official Homepage of Timo Tolkki

www.tolkki.art www.tolkki.art
www.facebook.com

Antti Ikonen

Antti Ikonen is on Facebook. Join Facebook to connect with Antti Ikonen and others you may know. Facebook gives people the power to share and makes the world more open and connected.
www.facebook.com www.facebook.com

management: FC Metal Agency
Eric Cerda: Eric@fcmetal.com
 
That's interesting. I have never been that big of a fan of early Strato (I can see the appeal of Dreamspace, but it's way too dark and alienating to me to put it on too often), but my favourite album is the transitional Fourth Dimension, so I'm not against the concept per se.
I'm more concerned with the fact Tolkki isn't what he used to be, but we'll see.
 
Well, lets hope Tolkki can keep it together this time. He usually end up whining that he expected better sales, not having to travel in a tour bus, getting backstabbed by other band member or record conpanies, and make a living out of his music. He still lives in 2003. I know his illness is not easy to live with, but I really hope he creates a good bunch of songs now, take things easy and let the music do the talking.

Leaving the group to embark on a successful solo career, yeah right!
 
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Yeah, he made a couple of good albums post-Stratovarius, but it was hardly a successful solo career.
 
Tolkki himself said in 2012, New era sold about 8000 copies around the world, Age of aquarius about half of that, and Trinity even less. He expected Symfonia to sell as much as Stratovarius, but of course it didn’t sell very well, and they only played a handful of shows
 
Symfonia could've been truly great. The band lineup is fantastic and I thought the album was really solid as well. I dig Avalon too but those albums are heavily overshadowed by Avantasia (rightfully so).
 
In paradisum is a very good album, my favorite Tolkki post Stratovarius album. I really wish they would have pushed forward and finished the second album
 
Watch out for Jari Kainulainen’s Father Strato and Jörg Michael’s Strato Diamond.

Tolkki and Turilli must be careful to not end up like Great white, Queensryche and LA guns
 
I'm doing a proper re-listen of classic Strato albums (I've even been toying with commenting on the discography here in this thread, but I usually lack the discipline to see such project to its end - last time I was discouraged from the Nightwish commentaries after a single album - though that still might continue, we'll see) before plunging into the post-Tolkki efforts again, including the new one and

- I still don't love the early albums - the most accomplished is probably Dreamspace and even that one is so dark and weird and morose and cold that while I get the appeal, I don't want to personally return all that often to it

- I still love 4th Dimension the most, I guess, with the second spot probably shared between Episode and Destiny

- I still don't "get" the love Visions get - there are tracks I love, but as a whole I always found the album rather lacking. It honestly might be because it begins with the one-two punch of the mid-tempo slog of Kiss of Judas and the absolutely unmemorable (for me) Black Diamond - I know I'm probably completely alone in that regard, but hey, it is what it is.

- I need to ask you lot, is it considered to be in bad taste to have 4000 Rainy Nights somewhere in your top 5-3-1-whatever? I know it's technically a power ballad and we're supposed to hold those in contempt, right? But I just honestly love this song more than ... well, more than a lot of songs I know, and I know a lot of songs.
 
JudasMyGuide said:
- I need to ask you lot, is it considered to be in bad taste to have 4000 Rainy Nights somewhere in your top 5-3-1-whatever? I know it's technically a power ballad and we're supposed to hold those in contempt, right? But I just honestly love this song more than ... well, more than a lot of songs I know, and I know a lot of songs.
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Stratovarius has a lot of great ballads, 4000 Rainy Nights included. Absolutely nothing wrong with loving that.
 
JudasMyGuide said:
one-two punch of the mid-tempo slog of Kiss of Judas and the absolutely unmemorable (for me) Black Diamond
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You're crazy.

JudasMyGuide said:
is it considered to be in bad taste to have 4000 Rainy Nights somewhere in your top 5-3-1-whatever?
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That's too high, but it's a great song.

JudasMyGuide said:
I know it's technically a power ballad and we're supposed to hold those in contempt, right?
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According to MaidenFans, yeah ::)

Anyway, here's my carefully curated Stratovarius playlist. It's only missing songs from the latest album.

 
KidInTheDark666 said:
Stratovarius has a lot of great ballads, 4000 Rainy Nights included. Absolutely nothing wrong with loving that.
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Thanks, I've decided it'll be one of my submissions in the metal song cup, as of now I'm also trying to choose between We Hold the Key and Eternity - the songs are somewhat similar, Eternity has better riff in the chorus, whereas Key is probably a better overall song, but I also have a hard time judging it on its own, without it following into Twilight Symphony right after.

Night Prowler said:
You're crazy.
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Sorry, I know Diamond is really beloved and I definitely like it more of those two (instrumentally it's really nice), I guess for me it's hurt by being right before Forever Free, which always felt like it had similar, yet much more memorable chorus. Right now I'm listening to them back to back and I'm not as sure about it, nevermind, this is probably some baggage from early listening to Strato, it'll probably go away with time.
But I really don't like Kiss of Judas, sorry. Not on its own and definitely not as an opener. A mid-tempo beginning of a power metal album kinda throws me off, I guess I'm prejudiced that way. :D

Night Prowler said:
That's too high, but it's a great song.
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Yeah, I'm fine with overrating things a bit because of sentimental/personal value, just wanted to know if other people liked it too.

Night Prowler said:
Anyway, here's my carefully curated Stratovarius playlist. It's only missing songs from the latest album.
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Cool, I'll try it out, how it works in sequence. I'll probably make my own once I'm finished with everything.
 
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