SONATA ARCTICA - Stones Grow Her Name

After two unconvincing attempts to redefine their style (Unia and The Days of Grays), Sonata Arctica finally gets the right combination. Placed midway between the galloping power metal of the first albums and the sterile progressive of the last ones, Stones Grow Her Name comes with a few new elements and, what’s more important, has memorable tunes. Even catchy, we might say, while being aware of the mistrust that this term generates in the area of metal.

Stones Grow Her Name is so diverse that it affords to place next to each other the most violent Sonata Arctica song (Somewhere Close to You) and the most pop-ish one (I Have a Right), without threatening the band’s identity or the homogeneity of the whole thing. The mixture is excellently dosed: after a start that lulls all suspicion, surprises come in leaps and bounds and alternate with a few breathers. In the first phase, the extremes draw the attention - the heaviest, the most melodic, which we mentioned, plus the most eccentric, and here I mean the banjo power metal on Cinderblox (as strange as that may sound, in fact it sounds really well). The final also stands out: an epic two-part song reprising and processing a theme from Winterheart's Guild, in a manner that is sometimes reminiscent of Shadow Gallery and Savatage. Between these, while more discrete at first, the other songs slowly reveal themselves and grow on you until they catch up with the first ones (Alone in Heaven, The Day). Only Don’t Be Mean keeps me waiting for it to grow and not only it doesn’t, but it totally fails to come up with a reasonable explanation for its presence on this album.

Taking advantage of exceptional inspiration in song-writing and backed up by the remarkable intelligence in the orchestrations based on the excellent cooperation between guitar and keyboards, Stones Grow Her Name manages to convince me that it is Sonata Arctica’s most mature album. And perhaps also the best. The chorus of I Have a Right keeps ringing in my head, something that hasn’t happened to me since Kingdom for a Heart (Ecliptica). Some will say, or may already be saying that it is too melodic, that there are places where it sounds like ABBA and A-HA. They are right. But I don’t think this is a bad thing. And, anyway, no-one can say that Sonata Arctica have remained that power metal band that was stuck in the same clichés. At least they tried.

Klawz Nota: 9