Stratovarious-Polaris

JVC
2009



This band went through multiple break-ups over the years. Timo Tolkki, their lead guitarist, seemed to be lacking inspiration as the main writer on some recent efforts. He must have been losing enthusiasm as well because when he ended the band for the final time, he waived the rights of the name to Jens Johansson the band’s keyboardist. The band lost guitarist Timo Tolkki, but brought in guitarist Matias Kupiainen and bassist Lauri Porra. So what does a band who has lost their main writer and a lot of momentum do to right the ship? In this case I think they tried to get back to some power metal basics and Johansson pushes to really use his playing and effects. Where they excel is by staying to the point and not getting to caught up in the excess flourishes that to often come with power metal. The fantastic production helps keep them grounded by emphasizing the heavy elements when needed, but keeping the keyboards in focus as well. This is a genre that all too often has bands who become long winded and forget about the metal part of power metal. Stratovarius stay on track and even make it fun. The only major flaw I heard was that they were going and then last three songs are all very slow. It was like driving on open roads and the hitting a traffic jam. So switching the track order may have fixed that problem. "Polaris" is not perfect and far from innovative. Yet this is a band who had every reason to fail and they managed to put together and album that works well enough on it's own plus shows the potential for the band to build upon for the future.