Six years after the last Avantasia album “The Metal Opera Part II”, multi-talented Tobias Sammet “resurrects” Avantasia project provoking the public concern. The precursor of “The Scarecrow” was cleverly prepared with the release of 2 EP’s, “Lost In Space Part I & II”, that came before “The Scarecrow” with material not to be included in it.

With totally 11 tracks and a lot of guests, conformable to a typical Avantasia album, “The Scracrow” stands as a high level album meeting all expectations! Eric Singer (Kiss, Alice Cooper) plays all drums and Sascha Paeth is on guitars whilst guests are no other than Alice Cooper, Bob Catley (Magnum), Roy Khan (Kamelot), Michael Kiske, Jorn Lande, Kai Hansen, Rudolf Schenker (Scorpions) just to name most of them, literally a recruitment of classic and talented musicians, therefore the result is way more than simply satisfying even for the more sceptical and less loyal listener. With Avantasia Tobias is obviously more free concerning the songwriting directions and experimenting, which of course reveals an enjoyable, multi-formed metal album, than he is with Edguy.

The album highlights are first of all “Lost In Space” and “Carry Me Over”, but also “Twisted Mind” (Duet with Roy Khan), “What Kind Of Love” (Duet with Amanda Somerville), the amazing “Another Angel Down” with Jorn Lande, “The Toy Master” (Alice Cooper) , “Devil In The Belfry” (Duet with Jorn Lande), whilst “the highlight of the highlights” is no other than the self-titled track and personally my favorite “The Scarecrow”, a synchronous metal masterpiece!

“The Scarecrow” is an album of high quality composing and variety that hardly one meets nowadays. Tobias’s creativity is here to stay and I believe that it contributes in a way to the re-consideration of some standards involved in making a high quality metal album. Avantasia’s “The Scarecrow” is without a doubt one of the best and most important releases of 2008.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Scarecrow”!