Sonata Arctica is back with their eleventh studio album (not counting both of the Acoustic Adventures Volumes) titled ‘’Clear Cold Beyond’’. They are back after 5 years with some new material and a European tour on the horizon. Tony Kakko and the boys are back at it after some much-needed time off for other side projects including Raskasta Joulua and Klingenberg Syndrome to name a few, as well as countless guess sessions with other bands along the way.

I may or may not be a spoiled Power Metal fan. Let’s face it I was bombarded by bands and albums in the mid to late nineties. I might not have been the biggest Power Metal fan back then (my older brother was). I discovered so many bands back then and as a Metal fan since 1993, I was not keen on the style and it took me several years to truly appreciate some of the bands (let’s be honest, not all bands are good). I may have been out of the loop a bit in the last few years in the genre. I have broadened my horizons so to speak and I do listen occasionally to some Power Metal and I do crank my stereo sometimes while listening to some of the classics I grew up with. So that may be one of the reasons why I tend not to be impressed with what is out there nowadays. As I said, I may have been too spoiled for my good.  I remember quite vividly the first time I heard ‘’Replica’’ on their debut release ‘’ Ecliptica’’ and there was something a bit more interesting than many of the bands from that era.

Unfortunately, Sonata Arctica got lost in the shuffle, the European Power Metal scene flourished with bands like Gamma Ray, Statovarius, Hammerfall, and Rhapsody but I always felt Sonata Arctica got a raw deal out of it all. They never achieved the semi-stardom of the core bands of the genre yet have been continuously releasing albums for 25 years. I do remember reading several bad reviews from their material of the last 15 years and to be perfectly honest, I have been out of the loop with Power Metal. It comes and goes for me, sometimes it’s all I am going to listen to and sometimes it’s out of my playlist for years to come. I always thought the genre had to be felt live to truly embrace the style and on studio recordings, it lacked the proper passion I loved in concert.

I have been gathering some information here are there, on forums, and all over the internet about what may have happened with the band after the first 5 albums. I can see much hatred and disappointment in fans when they changed their style of music and abandoned their Power Metal roots. I can wholeheartedly understand people being legitimately angry because it’s what brought them to the dance. The legion of fans seems to feel betrayed a bit and that’s probably one of the reasons they fell off the spotlight a bit and I have not heard much about them since their debut offerings. For ‘’Clear Cold Beyond’’ they wanted to come back (finally) to their roots but is it the dawn of a new age or too late? Let’s find out together.

First of all, the production of the album is awful. The mix is just bad, I felt Tony Kakko’s voice was drowned by the instruments and you can barely hear him at times. Usually Power Metal has some very strong production values but this time, I do not know what happened. I was listening to it last night and it felt muffled at best. The instruments are at times too loud, or sometimes just background noise, which hurts the overall value of the album. It made me think of the awful production of the last Kalmah albums. Not enough budget or lackadaisical effort, it’s up in the air at this point.

So, we got the first single in November of last year titled ‘’A Monster Only You Can’t See’’. Those are some profound lyrics about what a person can do to his family and his friends when his demons take over. The hurt and the pain and the people who try to protect you from others and make excuses for you. Probably some of the deepest lyrics from their career up to this point. It resonates deeply and sometimes you do not see the hurt you cause and you don’t see yourself as the monster, you see the rest as nuisances and monsters but when you look in the mirror, you do not see the reality. The song is pretty mid-tempo, nothing groundbreaking and there are a lot of words though, it’s packed to the gill with content and a strong message to boot.

The second single of the new opus is ‘’First in Line’’, now we are coming back to the roots of the band back in 1999. This is a real throwback, hooks, and great licks. The message is loud and clear, we were there at the forefront of the genre, we were the first in line ready to attack, ready to make the world listen to what we have to offer. We are there to make waves with the first era of Power Metal. It’s a crowd-pleaser to the early fans of the genre, it was the right song to get out before the release of the album, look guys, we can still do this, do not forget about us you know?

The third single that just came out with a pretty rad music video is ‘’Dark Empath’’, it has that nostalgic vibe about it. It does sound straight from maybe a B-Side of ‘‘Reckoning Night’’. It feels like it could have been something on this album, it’s a straight-up banger yet the mix is odd like I said beforehand. It lacks some proper production to make it truly its own but it’s still a pretty good overall Power Metal song.

Now for the rest, oh boy, as much as I would like to enjoy the other songs, I truly did not. It felt like the band was going on autopilot, like forced to come back to its roots. The effort is not always there (again the production does not help this at all persay) and they are going through the motions. They pick and choose stuff from their earlier material but the structure is not overly executed. Some songs are quite interchangeable and that’s never a good sign. When they changed their style dramatically, well, lots of bands took it upon themselves to grab the throne in a sense. Bands like Sabaton, Unleash the Archers, Powerwolf, Wind Rose, and Gloryhammer, all these bands became the next generation of Power Metal. At times they equaled the genesis of the genre and at times they stood head and shoulders above anyone else.

Sonata Arctica was at a time by far the most reliable power metal band in recent years. Almost like clockwork, every 2 years or so, the band has released a new record, which manages to make subtle changes to the band’s overall sound, while still sounding definitively like themselves. This album’s unique identifier is that it almost shows the band going back to the sound they became famous for. Many songs on this record are reminiscent of albums like “Ecliptica” and “Reckoning Night”; in other words, there is plenty of high-speed, blazing power metal driven by eccentric keyboards and large amounts of double bass. ‘’Clear Cold Beyond’’ shows that lead vocalist Tony Kakko has not lost a step. His voice soars with ease, and while he may not go after some of the high notes he did earlier in his career, he knows how to work within his range (which is still of impressive width). I do feel the effort might not as been sufficient to make it work, the return to the basics is not quite there yet.

At times you can feel the nostalgia, sometimes you yearn for the newer bands that brought the genre out of a serious slump in the mid-2000s. It’s not bad, not groundbreaking and stick to the three first singles and you’ll be fine, like watching the preview of a blockbuster that has the best moments. “Clear Cold Beyond” lacks the form, polish, and passion to make it a proper return to form but it’s a step in the right direction. The emotion could have been better, and the production could have saved the album at times but it has its moments.