Sonata Arctica, one of the biggest power metal bands today, have returned once again with a new album entitled “The Days of Grays”. Sonata Arctica started out as a typical power metal band in the style of Stratovarius, but slowly evolved into more of a symphonic melodic metal band with progressive influences. In 2007, with their album “Unia”, we saw for the first time the change of Sonata Arctica’s style to what they have become today, getting rid of all the fast powerful riffs and melodies in favor of a more atmospheric type of music based more on keyboards and the vocal lines of Tony Kakko.

“The Days of Grays” still contains a couple of remnants of their old mid-tempo/ faster glory era in some tracks, such as “Deathaura” and “Flag In The Ground” which open with typical Sonata Arctica riffs, where Tommy Portimo gets a chance to use his double bass drums. What I disliked in the album was the more moody/ballad songs that just failed to get my attention, especially tracks like “As if the World Wasn’t Ending”, “No Dream Can Heal A Broken Heart” and “Juliet”. I was always used to Tony Kakko’s ‘heart broken lyrics’ as we all remember masterpieces like “Letter To Dana” and “Don’t Say a Word” but the emotional ballads/love songs of “The Days of Grays” didn’t really touch me.

I can’t blame Elias Viljanen for this direction of the band once he seems to be truly following the style of former guitarist Jani Liimatainen. The rest of the band still show their amazing skills too. Kakko still has the same amazing vocal abilities and Klimgenberg is still a master keyboardist. It just seems that Power Metal today has taken some new direction that I fail to understand, once Sonata is not the only band that has disappointed me with their new musical direction. Am I too ‘old school’ or do Sonata owe their audience a return to the good old times of “Ecliptica”?