Stratovarius - Elements Pt 1 (2003)

After a break of three years, Stratovarius returned with what was originally meant to be a double album, before they decided to break it up into two, releasing one at the beginning of 2003, and one at the end. And, since this release is around an hour, it's probably just as well.
I don't often get into a moral/religious rants about lyrics in power metal; outside the Christian bands, there are always going to be spiritual differences between me and those who sing about such things. In the past, Timo Tolkki has shown glimpses of a "look inside yourself" view in his songs, but here it permeates throughout the record. I can respect others views, even if I don't agree with them, but it's hard to truly enjoy a song which talks about "forgetting God, turn to you" when God is one's best friend.
All this is a shame, because musically, this is Stratovarius' greatest album to date. It alternates between super fast songs and more steady rock, both of which they've done plenty of in the past, and it carries a heavily symphonic style (alright, bombastic), with choirs and orchestration producing a sometimes monumental sound, no better demonstrated than the twelve-minute, second-to-last song "Elements", with its gradual rise in mighty chanting from the choir (going on about the different elements in the world - wind, water, etc), while Timo Kotipelto cries out in passionate anguish.
And boy, does he cry out a lot here. One of the fast songs, "Learning To Fly", is just a ferocious number, with drummer Jörg Michael pounding his kit into oblivion, while Kotipelto gets higher and higher until it sounds like he's going to explode.  But it's such fun!
Another track of note is the beautiful "Papillon", with the highly unusual (in any rock) of a counter tenor starting the dreamlike tune. It doesn't hurt that I used to have a pet papillon some years ago now, but it does hurt a bit that this again includes a rejection of God.
I hate to get into these kind of things and, as I said, I wouldn't normally, but since it does seem to be the theme of the whole album, it's rather hard to ignore.
I imagine ELEMENTS PT 2 will be more of the same, topically, but if it's more of the same musically as well, it will still remain quite something to listen to.  Like Part 1 is.

****