Ecliptica

by Antti J. Ravelin

Sonata Arctica continues the tradition of their Finnish contemporaries, like Stratovarius and so on. Too bad that they just re-sample way too much of the others in their genre. What Sonata Arctica have to offer is just a bunch of interesting solos and melodies, but as a whole Ecliptica fails completely. The songs lack diversity, and it is almost impossible to listen to the album all way through. That's too bad, though; Sonata Arctica have proven earlier that they do have skills and the potential to make an exceptional heavy metal album, but seems that they have just chosen the easy path. Sure, hit songs such as "Blank File" and "Unopened" will satisfy the 'everyfan' of heavy metal, but the same ideas repeat too many times during the album. Sonata Arctica's next phase is to find a style of their own and make a difference to their contemporaries. But as a debuting band they are not so bad.