Sheer Bloodyfantastic
AJ | Joburg, South Africa | 06/09/2008
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Quite simply put this is one of the best metal albums I have heard in years.Its a concept work from Tobias Sammet who also fronts German Power band Edguy.The music is just brilliant,speed,power and just plain good old heavy metal.There are guests on the albums from Edguy,Helloween and Blind Guardian contributing to a feast of lovely metal.The production and sound quality on the albums is fantastic and the work begs to be listened to and played loud.If you havent heard of this band Avantasia you are missing out they are incredible and you will love em.Check out Edguy as well I own 7 of there albums and all I can say is they are one of the best metal bands I have come across,every album they make is great this band dont make so so albums and I highly recommend listening to there works especially the albums Hellfire Club and there latest one Mandrake they will blow you away with just brill quality music.
Another band you must check out are Dream Evil they are just awesome and not too disimilar to Avantasia and Edguy maybe just a bit heavier and come highly recommended.Hope review is of help.Please check out my other reviews on the Amazon UK site you might find something of interest.Cheers.
Hope review is of help."
An indispensable piece of Heavy Metal History.
Nikiforos V. Skoumas | Athens Greece, Cambridge UK | 05/14/2010
(5 out of 5 stars)
"There is not much that has not been said regarding the highly acclaimed `Avantasia' albums so we will be focusing on the special features of this Gold edition and how this differs in comparison to their latest albums.
`The metal opera Gold Edition' is an honorary 2008 release for the achievement of 300.000 sold copies of the Metal Opera pt1&2 albums. The release comes in a book-like hard cover case with a 48 page booklet including all lyrics, the entire storyline, an introduction by Tobias Sammet written in 2000 and a rather extensive interview with the mastermind himself. Evidently this release is a double CD pack including the `Metal Opera part 1' (1999) and `The Metal Opera part 2 (2000)'.
As most are aware `Avantasia' takes form on the principle of multiple singers undertaking different play roles. In terms of musical direction, these first two `Avantasia' albums follow the power/speed metal sound as opposed to the later releases that mostly lean towards melodic hard rock (without being absolute). In fact the performing core of `Avantasia' of that time was built entirely on musicians from the power metal genre; including bassist Markus Grosskopf (`Helloween'), lead guitarist Henjo Richter (`Gamma Ray'), drummer Alex Holzwarth (`Rhapsody of Fire') and of course Tobias (`Edguy') on lead vocals.
I do not think there is much reason in expanding on the relevance or credibility of these two albums as they have already reached classic status while their quality has been extensively analyzed and discussed over the previous years.
This `Gold Edition' is a very complete- deluxe package of the first two `Avantasia' albums and a great opportunity for new fans to experience the earlier forms of this classic metal project.
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