Under Flaming Winter Skies

A reason to care again
I had lost hope after Stratovarius' break about 10 years ago. Absolutely nothing they did interested me until the last album, the second to feature "savior" Matias Kupiainen on guitar.
This DVD might be a way of saying farewell to the drummer, but I take it as a reason to start caring about Strato again. They feel and sound like a band that's going somewhere. Great stage presence, great playing, good vibe. Timo's voice is suffering greatly, however, and I think a part of his register has disappeared, but his heart is still there.
The main feature sounds extremely good, with loud guitars (hear that, Tony Kakko ;)), audible bass and good sounding drums. Jen shines as always on the keys. The band just feels alive. It's true that the vocals are not up front, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. I could do without some of the songs on the setlist, especially the stuff from the last 10 years, but the delivery and energy are hard to argue with. I guess they wanted to document...

Sound, performance, filming and material is excellent to me.
Caught this video/dvd on youtube and bought it because of it.

Sound, performance, filming and material is excellent to me.

To me the vocalist sounded fine. Reminds me of Geddy Lee of Rush who does not hit the high notes anymore, but still sounds fine in a lower register. I've heard far worse such as Steve Walsh of Kansas and Geoff Tate of Queensryche whose best days seem behind them.

My only quibble is the bassist using Jazz Bass pickups which may sound fine on the solo, but are very thin sounding when playing with the band.

Finally, I keep hearing how power metal is expiring. What do you expect from something that started in the 1990's and was an attempt to play and redefine classic metal of the 1970's and 1980's.

The strength of power metal is its musicianship and compositional songwriting.

No reason why this can not be applied to melodic metal or even progressive rock.

Just so long as bands like...

Sound is bad
I looked forward to this concert. But who this is messed up, they should shoot him. Singing is not just hear, totally lost in other music. Poor recording. It's not worth your attention.

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