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When I heard the opening and title track of
this third album from the Swedish power metal band Zonata the first thing that
came to my mind was Judas Priest. The comes the second track and my thoughts
were directly screaming Rhapsody. The resemblance is so striking that it's
scary - the chorus and the song structure is almost exactly the same. Zonata
is just one of several heavy / power metal bands from the town of Borås
together with names like Conviction, Crystal Eyes and Ironware but in my
opinion they are still the best. From my ramblings above you probably realize
that this is a band who have learned a lot from the world's leading power and
heavy metal bands. They are not really a copycat band but the musical
influences are very easy to trace. In other songs you can hear a little Gamma
Ray, a little bit of Freedom Call and so on. These guys are highly skilled
musicians and they have written some very nice music for their second album
but they have still not created a strong enough personality to reach the
premier league of heavy / power metal. They sound too much like other bands
and too little like themselves if you know what I mean. There are some
wonderful songs though on this album where these guys really shine such as
"Buried Alive", "Visions Of Sorrow" and "Blade Of The Reaper". These
songs have the thing in common that they are crafted with care and perfection
as the only goal and the music is good enough to keep my mind off the fact
that the vocalist tries to be some kind of Swedish Fabio Lione which he
definitely is not. The thing that makes Zonata special is not the vocals, nor
the guitar riffs but the highly unique use of keyboards. I have heard no other
band who use keyboards the way these guys do, except for maybe Savatage, and
it does certainly make a difference. It seems as if someone is rather
interested in classical music here. A good solid release that should please
all fans of power and heavy metal who are tired of hearing the same thing over
and over again.
| Tracklist |
1. Buried Alive 2. Visions Of |
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Sorrow 3. The Last Step 4. Blade Of The Reaper 5. The |
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Mourner's Tale 6. Unleashed 7. A Dark Chapter 8. In The |
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Chamber 9. You Betrayer 10. Heroes Of The Universe |
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: 50.33
| Buy other Zonata albums |
