Album Review: Avantasia - The Mystery Of Time  Avantasia has
always existed in a world larger than life. Recruiting scores of
heavy hitters to fill the ranks of grandiose concept albums,
Avantasia has been the playground for Tobias Sammet's grandest
experiments. The two part "Metal Opera" is widely regarded as a
modern day classic, even if I seemingly disagree with the whole
world on which half is the most vital. While "The Scarecrow"
trilogy took the same route as Edguy, leaving traditional power
metal in the past in exchange for a more hard rock oriented
sound, Tobi continued to fill the albums with the kind of huge,
sing-along choruses so few metal bands seem able or willing to
write anymore. Even the bloated "Angel Of Babylon"/"Wicked
Symphony" double release contained well over an album's worth of
killer heavy metal.  So what happens when a project that was
always big becomes even bigger? It's an interesting question to
think about, but the answer isn't as easy to distinguish as I
would like it to be. "T