Stratovarius, a Finnish power and symphonic metal band, originated in 1984, which as of now has 17 albums, 4 DVD’s, and 5 Live albums. On September 28th of this year, Stratovarius released their seventeenth and most current album, that goes by the name of Enigma: Intermission II, which is a sequel to the previous Stratovarius album, Intermission, which was released on 2001 and received mixed reviews.

I think the album is mostly good as it features 3 brand new songs, and four orchestra remixes of some of their popular songs, the album has a reasonable length of an hour and fifteen minutes and has good content due to the remixes and the new songs which in themselves are pretty good.

Regarding the content of the album I stand on a middle ground as I’d prefer that the album would be composed of all-new songs rather than 3 new songs, 4 remixes, and the rest of old content, but I’m quite satisfied with the new songs, like one of the new songs: Enigma, which is a song that can be listened to and assume it comes from a previous album, like the 1997 album: Visions.

Some of the most important parts of a metal album, is of course, the lyrics of the songs, in this case the lyrics in contrast to the instrumental, it feels natural, although not for the orchestral remixes, as a metal album doesn’t have much of a dynamic contrast, which is more metal oriented, and not much instrumental, but in the songs that have lyrics, it feels natural like in Black Diamond, which has a rapid, aggressive but melodic tone of voice, which is Stratovarius’ usual fashion.

Fans’ also take into account the time it takes for the album to play completely, because if it’s too long, they will get bored, and overall lose interest in the album, in this case, it takes an hour and fifteen minutes, which is kind of a standard but overall the average Stratovarius album is between fifty-five minutes and an hour length for a Stratovarius album, and in this case, Enigma: Intermission II is the longest Stratovarius up to date, which in my opinion is the perfect length for this album, and in second place regarding time comes the album Dreamspace, which had a length of an hour, three minutes and fifty-two seconds.

Songwriting is very important for an album, as the lyrics are based on the songwriting, and in Enigma: Intermission II is how the usual Stratovarius sounds, which is a pair of fast, and heavy riffs, and an epic chorus, which is also a good addition to the album, as they keep up the consistency but also falls a bit flat on the orchestra sections, because previously Stratovarius has done a better job in the Symphonic metal genre, and in my opinion that’s the best way to listen Stratovarius, regarding this sound can be compared either to the sound of other two successful Stratovarius albums, which are: Visions and Episode, which has the same style of sound, and those two are of the most successful Stratovarius albums, because of the way they sound.

In general, it’s a good album, especially if you want to get into the more modern side of Stratovarius, I’d recommend this one, it’s consistent, although it lacks new content, for the few it has, it is of good quality, it also has variety, because it ranges between power metal and orchestra remixes, unfortunately, the remixes are a bit lacking. Lyrics-wise it’s good for a speed metal album, but not adequate enough for an orchestra, overall it’s a good album to start with, and if you want to start listening to Stratovarius, I’d say, listen to this one.