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REVIEW: Zonata - Buried Alive Century Media, 2002
7.5/10
Zonata - Buried Alive - cover art 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.

written by Vincent Eldefors

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Tracklist

1. Buried Alive
2. Visions Of
Sorrow
3. The Last Step
4. Blade Of The Reaper
5. The
Mourner's Tale
6. Unleashed
7. A Dark Chapter
8. In The
Chamber
9. You Betrayer
10. Heroes Of The Universe

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Playing time: 50.33

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