Customer Reviews

Intermission

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

First of all, this isn't a greatest hits cd. they already have one called The Chosen One. This album is made up of mostly unreleased songs. ok here is the break down.

11 new songs (4 are brand new, the others are hard to find b-sides and rarities). 3 covers songs (one of them is live). And last, there is the live version of Hunting High & Low.

Ok the 11 new songs are awesome. You can't even tell the b-sides are b-sides because they are so high quality, both in terms of production and song writing. The covers are great, the live cover is just as good as the studio songs on this album. excellent live production. take out the crowd and you would swear it's studio. Same thing goes for the hunting live song. In fact, it's even better than the studio version! It's worth the price of addmission alone.

if your a stratovarius or power metal fan, this is a must buy.

Considering that this album was compiled just to buy some time for the bands break, it's an amazing work. Three new songs bring some out some new sides of the band (maybe a hint what's coming on both Timos' solo albums?), and they sound great. The cover songs are what you could expect, Stratovarius does a good job honoring their heroes, but you can't beat the originals. Rest of the songs are bonus tracks from different albums and continents, meaning that they were left over from previous albums, and that is hard to believe, they are so good. These songs are also mostly composed by Johansson and Kotipelto. This explaines why they sound a bit different than the usual Tolkki stuff. Over all this album has a slower tempo than their normal studio works, having several ballads on it. And when it comes to ballads, it's suprising that Kotipelto writes the best ones (What Can I Say, Dream With Me). This album is a must for all Stratovarius fans, Power metal fans, and Power ballad fans.

Fun. Not always what many po-faced rock bands deliberately aim for, preferring self importance. Not Stratovarius. This album is great for fans and probably for the band who take this opportunity to clear the decks. We get tracks written by keyboard maestro Jens Johanssen plus some live tracks which show that even though they have a tendency towards overtly mellow stuff this band does own a pair of butt kicking rock boots. Plus the fun of getting to hear a few cover versions which in small doses can be great for fans as they let us know what influenced blokes like Timo Tolkki to pick up a guitar in the first place. A great grab-bag of goodies that all Strato fans should get their hands on.

This is a surprisingly good cd from the great band we all know and love. They have a couple of new songs, and some great cover tunes. Also, they have live versions of a couple of songs that are very good, it makes me want to go to one of their shows. All in all, this makes a great addition to your metal collection, it has some good stuff on it and is worth the money.

Extremely well-crafted c.d. The Judas Priest cover "Bloodstone" is fantastic as well as "The Curtains Are Falling" and the balladish "Keep The Flame". I would recommend this c.d. to anyone who is a fan of HammerFall, Helloween, Rhapsody, etc. A big five stars.

Finnish progressive/power metal godfathers Stratovarius released their "odds and ends" collection Intermission in 2001, partially as a chance to catch their breath after the touring they did to support their 2000 album Infinite. Intermission is a hefty collection of rarities that includes a handful of brand new recordings, b-sides from various Japanese import editions, cover songs and live tracks.

Intermission kicks off with the new recordings, which all have a similar sound to the Infinite album and showcase keyboardist Jens Johansson's songwriting style. After those come the cover songs, which are a little less impressive. A band as cold and precise as Stratovarius probably shouldn't be covering songs like Judas Priest's "Bloodstone" or Rainbow's "Kill the King" and "I Surrrender." Timo Kotipelto has a very unique voice, but it's just not suited for these songs at all. The rest of the album is made up of b-sides and live songs. Some are really good and some less so. The closing track, a live version of "Hunting High and Low" is a definite highlight.

Sadly, Intermission was the last worthwhile Stratovarius release for the remainder of the decade, at least until 2009's Polaris. The band ran out of steam, ran out of (musical) ideas and their off-stage drama overshadowed their musical output. Still, if you're a Stratovarius fan, you'll definitely want to grab a copy of this collection. It's probably worth it for the b-sides alone.

After listened to every single track of this new album thoroughly, the first impression to me was "what's going on??". The music inside, to a large proportion, is not the style they played b4. The music is not epic and symphonic at all, but consisted of handful of "power-pop". "Bloodstone" and "Why are we here" are like kind of Malmsteen's work. "Kill the king" is a common speed metal track. 'Keep the frame" and "Dream with me" are ordinary Straovarius' ballads, but are not as catchy and brilliant as Forever or 4000 rainy Night.

"Cold Winter Night", "When The Night Meets the Day", "What can I say" and "Hunting High And Low" being the highlights of this album, are not new to us as they were released in previous CD already. In other words, there are no surprising tracks that can cheer us up. What's more, in this album we can't find some all-time classic tracks like Destiny, Season of Change or Mother Gaia.

Despite this, "Will my soul ever rest in peace". "It's a Mystery" and " I Surrender" are nice works and worth listening. For die-hard fans of Stratovarius, this album is again a must-buy, though can hardly comparable with the previous one. The incredible instrument playing skills are still here! Indeed, this is the main reason that I give 4 stars to this album.

This is the first album I have heard from this group. I only heard from them by perusing similar music genres and came across them on Amazon. They are very, very good. I was astonished I had not heard of them previously. Definitely worth purchasing & looking into - from the sounds of their other albums, I will be buying more from this band.

OMg, these are boring songs. This album is not worth it.

I find it very humorous that a reviewer said the live performance was incredible because if you take away the audience, it would sound like studio. That's because Strato is pathetic live. You know why it sounds like studio? Because the band uses studio backing tapes live. This is the worst and most pathetic thing a band can do live. Backing tapes for vocals and instruments should be a crime.