Avantasia - Moonglow

Avantasia are a symphonic metal supergroup, whose first album was released in 1999. This is their eighth album, Moonglow, which was released in 2019.

The album kicks off with Ghost In The Moon, which strongly reminds me of Meat Loaf. Maybe it's just the piano? Or perhaps the 1980s-styled power-ballad choruses? Either way, it doesn't waste any time drawing us into the adventure, and I really dig it.

Speaking of epic, The Raven Child is a song that's almost as long as some Ramones albums! It ebbs and flows brilliantly, and each section perfectly dovetails into the next, making it a wonderful way to spend eleven minutes.

Book of Shallows somehow feels like a midpoint between Devin Townsend's Empath and Dragonforce's Inhuman Rampage. But where the latter is overdone to the point of absurdity and the former is intimidatingly complex, Avantasia could well be my Goldilocks album. It also has Meat Loaf's wonderful ability to make time melt away; the five minutes was over in a flash. Later on, Alchemy provides similar headbanging power-ballad goodness. And Requiem For A Dream Dragonforce at a tempo that I can comprehend. Brilliant.

Moonglow reminds me a lot of Nightwish. In other words, it's utterly brilliant. Moving on to quoting The Divynals (wow, I'm name-dropping a lot of bands in this post...), they believe that an uplifting chorus can single-handedly carry a song. Exhibit A in support of this theory is Lavender, which soars brilliantly.

Starlight is a nice, upbeat anthem that provides contrast to the album, but isn't memorable in its own right. Invincible is the same situation at the other end of the intensity spectrum.

Finally, Maniac somehow reminds me of Baby Animals and lyrically is quite an odd way for the album to end... but maybe it's a celebratory after-party for our heroine, following a successful conquest?

Favourite songs

Ghost In The Moon, Book Of Shadows, Moonglow, The Raven Child, Alchemy, Lavender, Requiem For A Dream

Final thoughts

Perfectly represented by its cover art, this album is a wonderful fantasy novel in a musical format.