For some reason Tobias Sammet decided a couple of years ago that his career and Edguy’s career needed a change, a change into a more “Rock Star: Supernova” look and feel; and despite “The Scarecrow” been a highly detailed record, with impeccable production and a absolutely outstanding composition and arrangements, it doesn’t stray away from the fact that Mr. Sammet is now composing music that can easily be qualified as pop metal.

If you had the chance to listen to the latest Edguy album “Rocket Ride” you wont find much difference in the sound Avantasia is presenting, perhaps the only discrepancy is the speed of the songs, having a more melodic, slow tempo Avantasia that focus a bit more in the variety and personality introduced by the many guest appearances on the album; been the one by Amanda Somerville the biggest surprise with a beautiful ballad called “What Kind Of Love”, a song that totally gets out of the musical line Sammet was developing on the previous songs.

The rest of the album follows a very common, well done, and perfectly arranged line up of songs that come together in order to present the unique sound that Avantasia tries to established as its own regarding the incredible similarity between this project and Edguy; a tough that makes me wonder, why do some artist create a side project just for them to keep writing the same thing they are already doing?
Generally speaking the record in spite of my previous qualification of pop metal, tries to safe some face by accelerating at some points, but ridiculous songs like The Toy Master “I'm the master of toys and all you girls and boys are welcome to my wonderland” really come to show just how “commercial” is Mr. Sammet willing to go in order to gain some respect in the MTV circles, and I can assure you, he might actually pull it off! In other words, if you are open minded and you don’t mind previously know metal artist to flirt with MTV and pop music then buy this record, it is actually quite well done… production wise that is!