Has a band ever missed the point harder than Sonata Arctica? Probably, but when your genre is literally called power-metal, and your last contribution to that is the mushy, unspeakably dull Talviyö, you can’t be omitted from consideration. That’s not even a dig at them going more prog; its direct predecessor The Ninth Hour had its moments in that vein, and quite a number of them at that. Rather, it’s more endemic of an issue that plagues a lot of longstanding European metal bands—they don’t even try to hide their complacency. With Talviyö’s universally soggy production and how braying (more than usual) Tony Kakko’s singing on it is, it’s like Sonata Arctica are dangling that notion in the audience’s face and laughing.
Maybe it wasn’t intentional, but that’s how it can read. It’s true of a lot of these legacy acts, where ‘legacy’ is really just codified as an inflexible barrier between old and new. Like with many of them, Sonata Arctica’s early work is viewed as their best, before slipping when they realised they had less to prove and could coast with general impunity. Even if Clear Cold Beyond is a step up from Talviyö, it feels less an instance of reputation repair and more Sonata Arctica being more careful of how far they let the mask slip. If they were interested in truly lighting a fire again, they’d opt for more than the power-metal-by-numbers approach as seen here.
That’s all to say that Clear Cold Beyond is still…okay? It’s eased back on its progenitor’s egregiousness, at least; the guitars actually sound defined rather than slopped on, for one. It actually wears its overall competency rather well to begin with, as First In Line, California and Shah Mat establish the power-metal fundamentals that are textbook, but welcome to see return. In principle, anyway, as the sped-up percussion and zipping whirlwind of guitars and keys on all three are where the interchangeability begins in earnest. Sonata Arctica may be able to feign the mood of a grand, daring adventure (and actually sell it reasonably), but it’s also the same journey through mythical, snow-capped mountainscapes that’s about as standard as it comes in power-metal. It can be workable at best, which is the total antithesis of being interesting.
What constitutes an attempt, at the same time, isn’t aiming all that high. By now, there’s been an abundance of circus-adjacent, theatrical camp that automatically puts Dark Empath and Angel Defiled out to pasture, amid a hefty dosage of cheese piled onto A Monster Only You Can See and The Best Things. At least Kakko seems to be having fun again, vamping and gesticulating in ways that’ll pave over his more blatant vocal crags widened by time. It’s kind of the prerequisite for power-metal, after all; that, and the palette of windswept, oversized guitars and squelching keyboard embellishments to effectively carry everything else.
And you would hope that that’d be there, after Sonata Arctica’s near-30 years as a band. But you’d also maybe want more, which isn’t what Clear Cold Beyond delivers when it’s so quick to tail off. It’s not a noteworthy album, particularly for falling into the void where power-metal crosses with AOR blandness and practically wills itself out of existence. The first leg would suggest a bit more in its allusions to climate change and tremendous ecological and environmental scope, but the speed at which that’s dipped out of with Dark Empath suggests it’s a bit too much for Sonata Arctica to handle. Even among that batch of songs, what leaps out the most is First In Line’s very cloying approach to leaving a better future for today’s children, reflected in the even-more-gaggingly earnest The Best Things. There’s also A Monster Only You Can See with Kakko’s interjections of “Asshole!” where they don’t fit, to round out an exhaustive list of where Clear Cold Beyond says anything even a bit memorable.
And so with all that on the table, who is this actually for? Logic would point to the diehards who’ve stuck around this long and are willing to let Sonata Arctica cook some more, though that kind of trust rewarded with the most inconsequential of upticks hardly seems worth it. And yet, there’s really no other sensible answer. It’s the definition of a catalogue-filler, an album created out of necessity to justify a band still going, even though they’re basically a spent force now. You could get this exact album from any power-metal band worth their salt; the Sonata Arctica name doesn’t add or detract anything whatsoever. In some of those cases, you might even feel something when listening to it.
For fans of: Stratovarius, Kamelot, Avantasia
‘Clear Cold Beyond’ by Sonata Arctica is released on 8th March on Atomic Fire Records.
Words by Luke Nuttall
It is a shame that the writer of this review is not professionally prepared to write it.
It does not talk about music, composition, nor does it describe any of the songs on a sonic level. It seems written by an immature young man who wants to listen to a Power Metal album at any price. I think that the power metal label has done a lot of damage and has intoxicated even the media that should be more informed when talking about music and not be so passionate about its lack of cultural immaturity.
This is a bullshit dribble of a review.
This review is bad and you should feel bad