Avantasia is the solo project of Tobias Sammet (Edguy), who just released to the market a two-disc box set called "Angel of Babylon" and "The Wicked Symphony" completing the trilogy "The Wicked Trilogy", following the melodic and structural line of the wildly successful previous album and its first part "The Scarecrow" and moving away from the power metal of their first two albums.
Avantasia now tends more toward mid-tempo, sound quite close to the Hard Rock in many parts of the disks, but still heavy and dark essence in others.
Discs do not cease to be extremely varied, leaving many surprises such as the song "Symphony of Life" and its flirtation with goth sound that I especially liked
enough, or "Blizzard on a Broken Mirror" with a modern sound, distorted guitars at times and are not absent either the ever-present ballads and melancholy sounds.
It’s a production extremely well maintained and structured: you can see the hard work of Sammet composition, it seems that the inspiration came in waves, because he has created two magnificent works, outdoing itself once more, obviously helps a lot also the presence of numerous guest artists, who give these 2 very evenly matched records a high level, the weak moments are really very few.
Among the songs that stand out, I especially like: from the album "The Wicked Symphony", the songs "Scales of Justice", a powerful song in the voice of Tim "Ripper" Owens, "Dying for an Angel", with the dominant voice of Klaus Meine, "Wastelands" and Michael Kiske (who says he does not like the metal anymore). "Runaway Train", with the excellent guitarist Bruce Kulick, and "Black Wings" the darkest song of all.
From the album "Angel of Babylon", "Stargazers" a song very varied with some wonderful solos, "Death is Just a Feeling" and its theatrical start, Jon Oliva on vocals and ghostly keyboards. "Down in the Dark", an excellent hard-rock song, and the aforementioned song "Symphony of Life", Gothic Metal song with the pretty voice of Yang Cloudy.