A solid effort

Review Score: (8/10)
This album from Sonata Arctica truly shows what this band is capable of. This time they came up with something different, yet quite interesting set of tunes that take a liitle time to get into and fully appreciate. First, there are songs like 'Gravenimage' and 'Ruins of my Life' that grow on you each time you listen, then there are your guaranteed 'Victora's Secret and 'The Cage' that you'd expect to hear on any SA album. Contribution of J. Johansson of Stratovarius on some songs is evident, though the band would't suffer much recording without him, as keyboards on the rest had been handled with surprising freshness. The production is top notch as always. A couple of songs here I do not care much about, that's why 4 stars they get from me without thinking twice.

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