Polaris

Band: Stratovarius
Title: Polaris
Year: 2009
Label: Edel/earMusic

This album was released on 15th of May 2009 so this review won’t tell you anything you don’t know about it yet… in case you are a supporter of Strato!
After Tolkki‘s departure from the band, its future was uncertain for many reasons and after a period of press releases, the band decided to go on, hiring a new guitar player, Matias Kupiainen.

So, what about Polaris? Well, it’s always difficult to separate reason from heart and if you love Stratovarius like me, it’s more difficult… maybe it’s an impossible task, so for sure my words will be influenced by this.
First of all I found Polaris a well produced album, a very nice come back for the Finnish band starting from the very interesting cover artwork to reach the audio production. Sounds are clear, powerful as the band used to be in its history and the technical skills of the musicians are out of the question.
The album starts with the first single Deep Unknown, where we can notice the virtuoso duo Johansson-Kupiainen and the very catchy vocal melodies. This song is somehow surprising but we will talk about it in a little while. The second track called Falling Star is a mid tempo which reminded me of their other song A Million Light Years Away for its mood and for some of the arrangements. After this one it’s time for a more slow, King of Nothing, song that combine the old Strato’s elements from albums like Fourth Dimension or Dreamspace to their new musical direction. Also the lyrical themes seem to be quite darker while Kotipelto‘s vocal lines are less extreme high pitched than before. A classical harpsichord introduces the next song and Strato geso back to a very fast song called Blind.
The rhythmic section made by the bassist Lauri Porra and by a German drummer Jorg Michael is fast, powerful and very very precise without to insist on useless technicism.