RockBox - Stratovarius

Stratovarius - Dreamspace

Line-up:
Timo Tolkki - vocals, guitar
Jari Kainulainen - bass guitar
Tuomo Lassila - drums
Antti Ikonen - keyboards
Sami Kuoppamäki - session drums on songs 3, 4, 6, 7 and 13

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Stratovarius was founded in 1984 by three guys from Helsinki, Finland; drummer and vocalist Tuomo Lassila, bass player John Vihervä and guitarist Staffan Stråhlman. Before Stratovarius the same line up performed under the name Black Water.

The music of early Stratovarius was very different from what it is today. Back then it was heavily influenced by Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne. Guitar player Staffan brought in some classical elements. Bass player John left the band by the end of 1984 and was replaced by Jyrki Lentonen, who previously played with Timo Tolkki in a band called Road Block.

1985 Staffan did not want to play in Stratovarius anymore and he left one week before the band was supposed to play one gig in Aalborg, Denmark. Tuomo Lassila phoned to Timo Tolkki and asked him to join the band. Timo learned all the songs from cassette tape and after a few rehearsals the band travelled to Denmark. At that time Tuomo was still singing and playing the drums at the same time. It soon became evident that the band needed a singer because Tuomo's vocal range. However, good singers are few and far between and so Timo Tolkki took over the vocal duties. At this point the music was starting to sound more like it is today: very melodic and classically influenced. Timo Tolkki brought along his influences; Blackmore, Rainbow and Baroque music. The band rehearsed and gigged extensively in Helsinki and made its first demo tape under this line up in 1987. It contained songs "Future Shock", "Fright Night" and "Night Screamer".

The demos were sent to various record companies in Finland and CBS Finland wanted to sign the band after seeing a show at Tavastia Club, Helsinki. At this point the band had a new keyboard player Antti Ikonen. The band recorded its first single "Future Shock/Witch Hunt" in 1988. This was followed by another single "Black Night/Night Screamer" in the beginning of 1989 and finally the debut album "Fright Night" saw daylight in May 1989.

The band gigged extensively during the summer and autumn 1989 and played a huge outdoor gig Giants Of Rock in Hï¿½meenlinna with Anthrax and many other metal acts. After all this bass player Jyrki Lentonen left the band. New material was written and demoed early 1990 but CBS lost interest of releasing more Stratovarius material. The band did not give up but rehearsed a lot and made new songs and finally went to record the follow-up to "Fright Night". All this time the band did not have a record contract and it had to finance the recordings by itself. Timo played all the bass parts and even though there is a photo of a new bassist Jari Behm in "Twilight Time" actually play on the album. Soon Jari was asked to leave the band because his style of playing did not fit to the band's music at all.

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The second album called "Stratovarius II" was released in Finland early 1992. At this point it was pretty clear that the market for Stratovarius was outside Finland. Many tapes were sent all over the world and Shark Records wanted to sign the band after hearing the song "Hands of Time". Finally "Stratovarius II" was released with a new cover and a new name "Twilight Time" in October 1992 all over the Europe. Soon import copies started to spread to the Japanese market and "Twilight Time" was five months in Top 10 of import disks in Japan. Evetually it became the best selling import album in Japan in 1993. The band also got a big record contract with JVC Victor Entertainment inJapan which released "Twilight Time" in July 1993. Timo Tolkki flew to Japan for the first time in the same month to do promotion and saw that the bands popularity was skyrocketing with enthusiastic fans. The spare time between searching for the record deal was spent on writing new material and the band recorded new songs during the whole year 1993. Also a new bass player Jari Kainulainen joined the band as 70% of the new material was already recorded. At this time Tuomo Lassila had a severe stress injury in his both hands and was not able to play drums for 8 weeks. The record had to be completed with Kingston Wall drummer Sami Kuoppamï¿½ki, who played on 4 tracks.

Finally the third album "Dreamspace" was released worldwide in February and March 1994. It was highly praised among the critics and took the bands popularity to a different level. It contained such all time Stratovarius classics as "Dreamspace", "4th Reich" and "Chasing Shadows" to name a few. In June the band headed to Japan for the first tour and played concerts in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya seeing Japanese fans face to face for the 1st time. In Finland they played just one gig before heading for Japan in the now defunct, legendary Shadow Club in Helsinki. This was also JK's very first live appearance with Stratovarius.

New material was written from the spring to summer 1994 and band hit the studio once again with very good vibes from Japan Tour. Timo Tolkki fulfilled his long time dream by recording the solo album "Classical Variations and Themes". It contained songs like "Fire Dance Suite", which was originally written for "Stratovarius" back in 1986, "Lord Of The Rings" and many other classically influenced tracks. The album was released in October 1994. Stratovarius spent the whole summer of 1994 in studio finishing its fourth album.

At this stage Timo Tolkki decided that his singing days were over and that the band should find a proper singer to take the band's sound even further. As advertisements were put to local music papers, somebody remembered a guy from Lappajï¿½rvi, Finland, who had approached the band one and half years earlier. So Timo Kotipelto got a phone call from Timo Tolkki and an audition was arranged. The band jammed some songs and as the new guy opened his mouth for the first time, everybody knew that he was the new singer.

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Timo's sound can be heard all over the bands fourth release "Fourth Dimension". The title of the album says it all and the sound and the songs on this album were something totally different than before but still the musical style remained as true Stratovarius metal. "Fourth Dimension" was released worldwide in March 1995 and it doubled the sales of "Dreamspace"

The band toured heavily playing shows in all over Germany, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Finland, Greece and Japan. After all these tours Tuomo Lassila and Antti Ikonen, the long time members were asked to leave the band. There were many reasons for this line up change, the most important were personal chemistry and musical differences. The guys just could not play the material that was developing in Timo Tolkki's mind.

After the success of "Fourth Dimension" Timo Tolkki and Timo Kotipelto wanted to take the bands music even further. New drummer Jörg Michael and new keyboard player Jens Johansson entered the band.

The mixing of bands fifth album "Episode" took place at Finnvox Studios in Helsinki. This album was once again a huge step forward for the band. With the fresh attitude and sound of Johansson and Michael the result was dramatic, melodic and symphonic metal album. Also for the first time a choir of 40 singers and a string orchestra of 20 players were used. The album contains some Stratovarius classics as "Father Time", "Eternity" and "Will the Sun Rise?".

Stratovarius' next album "Visions" was released in the April of 1997 and it hit the Finnish charts position #5 in an instant. It spent a total of 24 weeks on the Finnish Top 40. "Visions" also launched an extensive tour, during which Stratovarius entertained not only Finns but also their fans in Japan, Europe and South America. "Visions" exceeded the gold disc plateau of 20.000 sold copies in Finland and the gold disc was celebrated at Tavastia Club in Helsinki June 10th 1998 with a little party and a special gig with a couple of unusual song choices.

During Visions tour Stratovarius recorded their first live album, double CD "Visions of Europe", which was released late March 1998. It contains over 100 minutes of material. Also this album has been a huge success both critically and commercially.

April 1998 Stratovarius started rehearsing their new studio material for the forthcoming album, their seventh full length studio release "Destiny" The album was recorded at Finnvox studios during the spring and summer of 1998 and the release date was October 5th 1998. The first single from the album is entitled SOS was released August 17th and it hit the chart position #3 on Finnish single charts faster than the speed of light. Strangely enough, Destiny debuted the Finnish charts on position #1 the Thursday BEFORE it was officially released. The future will show us if we will see another Stratovarius gold disc party within one year.

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The coming of the year 1999 saw Stratovarius again surpassing the gold disc plateau with "Destiny" and this was but sign of more fine things to come. This year has already seen Stratovarius clinch the merits as the best Finnish metal band in the annual readers' poll of the Finnish metal Magazine"SFP". Also the video for SOS was voted the best domestic metal video in Finland in 1998 in the same poll. Soundi magazine's readers' poll confirmed that Stratovarius is now in the big league in Finland, Timo Tolkki took a landslide victory in the "best musician" category for the second time in a row, Stratovarius was elected th 2nd best band, Timo Kotipelto was voted the 3rd in the "best singer" category, Destiny was elected the 2nd best album and SOS the 2nd best song. Also both Timos vere voted in the "Wondeful Person" category and Jens was voted in foreign musicians category. Stratovarius also got laurels from Finnish record industry, they got an "Emma" trophy for being an outstanding export band.

The closing half of 1999 sees Stratovarius building up their new studio album, which will be released by Nuclear Blast Records February 28th 2000.

Infinite was yet again very successful album and it certified gold in Finland. It was 3rd album in a row to do that for Stratovarius.

At the end of 2000 Stratovarius returned form their most succesful and longest Tour ever, promoting the Infinite Album they ever did performing in front of more than 300.000 people. Right afte that they decided to do a break for an unknow amount of time. Some musicians inside the band took the chance to work on their solo albums like Timo Tolkki and Timo Kotipelto. A b-side rare material, bonus track - mix called "Intermission" inlcuding 4 new songs was released in 2001 to close the gap until the new album would be released followed by a very selective choice of festival appearance in summer 2001.

After a year's break Stratovarius entered the studio again in summer 2002 to work on their next album, called "Elements Pt. 1," released the following spring.

In late 2003, tension began building within the band. Timo Tolkki became irritable with the other band members. He claimed to be recieving death threats and hired trained bodyguards. Finally, in September, he decided that some of the other members were a threat to the direction he wanted Stratovarius to go in. In the end, Timo Kotipelto and Jörg Michael were expelled from the band. At the time both claimed they were happy to leave, because they did not want to around the irrational Tolkki any longer.

The following months saw a bizarre series of claims, announcements and alleged events come from Stratovarius,mostly originating from Timo Tolkki.

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In January 2004, Anders Johansson and Katriina "Miss K" Wiiala were officially announced to replace Jörg and Timo, respectively. A now-infamous photoshoot of Miss K with a mouth full of fake blood was posted on the Stratovarius website around this time as well. Anders soon backed out of the arrangement after Tolkki made an announcement that he had joined Stratovarius permanently - he had, in fact, only agreed to perform as a session musician on the next album as a favour to his brother Jens.

In February 2004, Timo Tolkki claimed to have been assaulted, beaten, and stabbed by an unknown attacker. A suspiciously fake-looking photo of an "injured" Tolkki was posted online. It was later said that he was soon rehospitalized following a suicide attempt.

In the aftermath of this, Tolkki announced he was going to try and sit down with the members (past and present) to sort everything out, and disband Stratovarius if they could no longer co-operate.

The band eventually reunited 13.01.05 and later released a self-titled comeback album. This would be the last album with the 'classic' line-up, however, as bassist Jari Kainulainen left soon afterwards. Lauri Porra, from Sinergy and many other Finnish projects, was brought in to replace him. Porra has also released a solo album of jazzy bass-led music.

On April 2nd, 2008, Timo Tolkki announced that Stratovarius has split up due to irresolvable tensions between himself, Timo Kotipleto and Jörg Michael, and that music he had written for the next Stratovarius album would be used for his new project, Revolution Renaissance.

In June 2008 however, Tolkki instead released the contractual rights to both the Stratovarius name and back catalogue to Kotipelto, Johansson and Michael, allowing them to carry on the band with Lauri Porra and a new guitarist.

Later that month, Tolkki said that he will be making one more Stratovarius album, "the last one", with the original drummer Tuomo Lassila and keyboardist Antti Ikonen, with Tolkki singing and playing guitar. The album will most probably be recorded under a different band name.

The remaining four members chose Matias Kupiainen as their new guitarist in August 2008, and later confirmed they would continue under the name Stratovarius.

Timo Tolkki confirmed in a lengthy interview in 2008 that many stories from the time of the band splitting apart (inclusing his assault, the hiring of "Miss K" and Jens Johansson urinating on him onstage) had been entirely fabricated, and claimed the complicity of the rest of the band, as well as their management and record label.

FLAC audio format.

Requested by nuclearnoise

ENJOY BOXERS!!!!!

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Dreamspace - Strato's best? - 95%
Written by PvtNinjer on May 12th, 2008

Stratovavarius is often remembered and characterized by their catchy, anthemic later works. It's a shame, because people with only passing interest in the band, or just plain don't like Strato's brand of Power Metal are missing out on a truly great album. More progressive than the "strictly followed, almost rulebook-like set of song-styles" Stratovarius of later albums such as, well, every album after this one, Dreamspace is an album full of awesome riffs, progressive song structures, pounding drums with alot of great, creative patterns and perfectly executed catchy, melodic vocals which include awesome high pitched screams that just absolutley slay (i.e., right before the outro melody comes in on the title track "Dreamspace" -- holy crap!).

What I really like best about this stellar album is just the overall quality of the way the songs come together. A perfect example of what I'm describing is the song "4th Reich". The interplay between the military style drums, the awesome, atmospheric melody and the mood setting keyboards is absolutely breathtaking and is 100 percent epic in a totally different way than Stratovarius is usually acclaimed for (think Queensryche). And then the melodic solo comes in and if you haven't creamed your pants by now, you have got to have defective equipment. Not only that but the way all the songs flow during the length of the album is awesome. Every song is perfectly placed with purpose on the track listing and to switch the tracks could spell disaster. Opener "Chasing Shadows" sounds like a regular ol' slab of killer power/speed metal, which then leads into the next, more brooding and progressive "4th Reich" which then leads into the dreamy "Eyes of the World", etc... As you listen to the album you are taken on a trip through what I would describe as the dreams of someone a little fucked up. Don't think it sounds appealing? Oh, but how wrong you are.

I have to dedicate some time to what I think differentiates this album from typical Stratovarius albums: the riffs! Pretty much every song has a killer intro filled with fast, intense, melodic riffs. Some standouts are "We Are the Future", title track "Dreamspace" and my personal favorite, "Abyss". Almost every riff on this album rules in every sense of the word. The only tracks that I'd say has a subpar riff would be the albums pretty much only straightforward rocker "Reign of Terror". It actually sounds a lot like Megadeth's "Symphony of Destruction" except even less thrashy which results in... well, nothing too great. The song is actually not that bad as a whole, but it is pretty lacking and I'd rank it probably as the worst track on the album. "Shattered", one of the album's least progressive tracks is also a little worse off than the rest in the riff department. Too me, it sounds like a quicker, more "power metal" version of "Reign of Terror". with palm muted sixteenths everywhere. The closer "Wings of Tomorrow" isn't really too great either, but it serves as the perfect closer. Like described in previous reviews of the album it really serves to conclude or end basically what could be describe a nightmare in music form.

As a passing, I would like to at least mention the production. Most Kotipelto era Stratovarius albums have VERY slick production (maybe with the exception of "4th Dimension", but the production is much more gritty and echoey. Indeed it sounds much more "metalic" than their later works. The snare drum has this awesome reverb and the guitars have a great "Queensryche" like tone to them alot of the time. It really does add to the atmosphere, making this album sound a lot less upbeat than it's successors.

Really, the only other thing I'd like to point out is Tolkki's vocals. I really think everyone saying they are a little lacking or sub-par is just a slice of unabashed Kotipelto worship. Don't get me wrong, Kotipelto is obviously very talented, but Tolkki delivers some really great vocal melodies and can also hit some awesomely high notes. Like I said before, listen to the outro on the title track. You know who else is often described as sub-par? Kai Hansen (think Walls of Jericho). You know what else he is on that album? Awesome.

All of this stuff considered, I really must say that I think this is probably Stratovarius' best effort. Really, songwriting-wise, this album is positively solid all the way through with some slight speed bumps. I think even people who don't like Stratovarius really should at least give this album the old college try, cause it's definintely their best effort.

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28/12/2008

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19/09/2023 05:04:30