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Jon Oliva's Pain: Festival Heavy Metal, Power Metal AFM Records February 19th, 2010
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Review
Festival is the fourth full-length release for Jon Oliva's Pain, which was a release that pretty much just snuck in under the radar. With very little promotional effort if any, perhaps this is a sign of something wicken coming our way. With this release, that statement is true, but not in a poor quality release sort of way. Oh no, not at all. With Festival, the listener is cast into a very dark and unique world compared to some of the previous releases that cause the music to live up to the title of the album. The only problem here is that it's just for a brief period of time... Right from the start with "Lies", the album comes at you pretty rough. Much of what has made Jon Oliva's Pain such a well known act is still present, just made much darker then usual. You could actually sit back and listen to this album just picturing the band performing in a dimly lit venue while the band plays and Jon Oliva himself plays his heart out with a lit cigarette nearby, which is really where the most enjoyment from this release comes from. This doesn't mean the entire album is all doom and gloom. While "Death Rides A Black Horse" clearly is a much darker song, and "Festival" really does set up the atmosphere of some sort of twisted side show, it's after "Festival" that the album starts to pull us from the darkness and back into the light with some more fun and/or energetic tracks that stem back to the band's roots. This is easily the most saddening aspect to the album. Festival starts off with such a dark and maniacal feeling that leaves you shocked your first listen. It's so good that you won't want to leave it, but you must to continue as you are practically thrust out of that darkness into the light. While "Living On the Edge" is a great song, it doesn't live up to the first three or four songs of the album, and then you get "Looking for Nothing" which is a flat out ballad track that seems to incorporate some blues into it, much like how "Afterglow" incorporated some Jazz into the mix. And, as quick as you are thrust out of the dark, it's as if they wish to pull you back in with "The Evil Within", but sadly it and the rest of the material simply cannot live up to that overall ambience, even though this track is a spectacular track no matter what. If you approach the rest of the album as some whole new entity, then you'll enjoy some of the material on here. "Living On the Edge" is a fun song that is clearly stemmed from the golden days of Heavy Metal and Hard Rock, and "The Evil Within" really pushes John Oliva's harsher vocal performance. The only problem is that there are some slower tracks that really deter and simply don't stack up against some of the force this album has. While "Looking for Nothing" is a good slower track, but when you look at "Winter Haven", which starts off as a ballad and ends up going into a much heavier song about half way through, it seems really bland to start with, and even when it picks up doesn't really do much. Sadly, the same can be said about "Now". While that track is beautiful, it just doesn't really do much for the album, and just feels a little lack as far as the song writing itself goes and will grow boring pretty quickly after that first release. Festival is easily one of the most frustrating albums for this year. While it starts off powerful and enthusiastic and has such a strong atmospheric presence through the music itself that really makes you feel as if the band put their souls into the music, it all quickly goes away and you're given some material that isn't quite as awe inspiring, as well as tracks that feel like filler that, with a little more effort, could have been better. Because of this, the album doesn't really have a strong replay factor other then with those aforementioned earlier tracks, so it's best to hold off or sample it through some on-line stores before purchasing.
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