ALBUM REVIEW: Acoustic Adventures – Volume Two – Sonata Arctica
Determined to keep the momentum rolling after the first instalment, SONATA ARCTICA are back with Acoustic Adventures – Volume Two less than a year later. If Volume One passed you by, the Acoustic Adventures series sees the SONATA ARCTICA gang pick selects from their discography and reinterpret them as far more stripped-down affairs. Double-kick pedals are replaced with delicate percussion, ripping distorted guitars are usurped in favour of bright acoustics and sci-fi synths are shunned in favour of… well, different synths. All of this led by the familiar croon of vocalist Tony Kakko as he gently pulls the listener through the warmly morose tales that make up SONATA ARCTICA’s body of work.
As with Volume One, the song choices here span the gamut of SONATA ARCTICA’s career. However, compared to its predecessor, Volume Two’s curated track list skews more towards the band’s earlier material. Many of these choices remain faithful to their original incarnation with the melancholic shuffle of tracks like Winterheart Guild’s Broken having always been tailor-made for an acoustic rendition. Similarly, Silence’s Black Sheep steadfastly holds on to the elaborate harmonised guitar and synth lead that shapes the song, although the band breathe new life into is chorus by infusing it with a jazzy swing.
Amongst the legacy choices is early classic San Sebastian, unsurprisingly stripped of its lightning-fast guitars and pummelling drums. Instead, the song takes on a lounge-ballad feel, oozing the kind of melodramatic charm best accompanied by karaoke bar video montages of wistful souls staring into the distance. Perhaps the best of these historical tracks however is the Ecliptcia classic, Letter To Dana. Obviously always a ballad through and through, Letter To Dana was a surprising omission from Volume One. It’s always been a slightly ridiculous song, and nothing has changed with this pared down iteration. But devoid of its ringing power chords and harpsichord-synth pomp, Letter To Dana delivers more fully on its haunting sincerity on Acoustic Adventures. Part of that is down to Kakko’s performance, with his deeper tone and gritted belting towards the end giving the song more depth – it’s one of the album’s highest moments, undoubtedly.
Less represented here are SONATA ARCTICA’s more recent releases, with the most modern cut being Half A Marathon Man from 2014’s Pariah’s Child. A light-hearted ode to taking up running, its manifestation here is oddly mesmerising. Still boasting a thick and meaty bass line, this time underneath a swaggering piano, Half A Marathon Man takes on all the trappings of an action film montage song – replete with the album’s only distorted guitar solo. One-time single Flag In The Ground also makes a welcome appearance. Despite its squeaky 8-bit synth and banjo-driven bounce, the song’s bittersweet story comes across far more endearingly than on The Days Of Grays, providing another surprise highlight for Volume Two.
Not every cut is a rousing success, mind. WolfMoon suffers by not committing to one direction, for instance. Starting as a gothic ballad, SONATA ARCTICA try to infuse it with the same high-energy change of pace as the original, resulting in a mess of elaborate piano lines and confusingly fast acoustic guitars. Gravenimage on the other hand has the opposite problem, doubling down on the song’s mellower tendencies to create something that wouldn’t sound entirely out of place on an IRON & WINE album. Reckoning Night’s Shamandalie takes that even further, with its power ballad inflections mostly replaced by a twee electric piano and little else. Still, even the less successful songs are interesting experiments and you can’t fault SONATA ARCTICA for making creative choices, even if they don’t work out.
While perhaps not as consistently strong an offering overall as Volume One, this chapter of Acoustic Adventures has plenty of charm and yet again does a great job of demonstrating how flexible and strong SONATA ARCTICA’s song-writing has been through the years. Compared to its forerunner, Volume Two makes good on representing much more of the band’s classic output, often to great effect. It’s a great way to revisit some of power metal’s best material in a suitably more autumnal evening guise.
Rating: 7/10
Acoustic Adventures – Volume Two is set for release on September 30th via Atomic Fire Records.
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