The Days of Grays

It's quite rare for me to find an album that not only defies description, but just laughs at all attempts to categorize it. The Days of Grays, by Finnish metal band Sonata Arctica, is such an album.

Sonata Arctica has evolved considerably over their career. They started off playing classic-style power metal similar to genre pioneer Stratovarius, albeit with lyrics that dealt with personal emotions and stories as much as  fantasy. Around their 2004 album Reckoning Night they began adopting a more progressive metal style with more complicated, moodier songs and complex lyrical themes. The Days of Grays combines their progressive and power metal styles, along with more orchestral elements than previous albums. The result is pretty much everything I love about European metal on one CD.

This album is one of a few in my library I have listed as "Symphonic/Progressive/Power Metal". A quick listen will reveal that it deserves all of those genres; the songs are diverse, sprawling compositions that combine crunching guitars and a (simulated) orchestra.. If you listen to this album expecting a straight-up metal record, you will be disappointed. In fact, if you're expecting just about anything beforehand, you probably won't enjoy it as much. It's hard to make general statements about such a diverse album, so let's get to the tracks.

After a completely orchestral intro that slowly builds layers upon layers of piano and strings (Everything Fades to Gray), the full band bursts onto the scene with the epic Deathaura, which is basically the whole album in miniature. In eight minutes we get a multi-sectioned odyssey containing some of the band's hardest rocking backed by the orchestra with multiple quiet interludes. The Last Amazing Grays is somewhat more straightforward. The guitar takes more of a textural backseat to the piano and organ, but comes into its own during a low-register solo which is made all the more epic by the symphonic backing.

Did I mention vocalist Tony Kakko is fantastic in all of these songs? He effortlessly switches between the usual operatic vocals and a more emotional style that befits the more symphonic parts of the album. Basically, he's awesome.

Flag In the Ground is one of the more straight-up power metal songs on the album (with the guitar and keyboard roles approximately reversed from the last song) going back to the band's earlier days, and it is quite awesome. It's also one of the very few SA songs with a happy ending. Zeroes has a more plodding pace (slow enough to headbang to)  and rocks even harder.

The Dead Skin is another short epic, this time compressed to just over six minutes. The lyrics are a little on the emo side, but musically it's beautiful, beginning with a beautiful, swirling piano melody that continues through much of the song. Did I mention the solo and post-solo section is some of the best, most metallic metal I have ever heard? Well, it is. Definitely one of the more interesting (and awesome) parts of the album.

And then...then we have Juliet. Possibly one of my five favorite songs ever. SA takes the climax of Shakespeare's most famous work and gives it the epic treatment. The ending is one of the most intense and beautiful things I have ever heard. I can't possibly do it justice with anything I say, so just listen to it.

These songs are just the highlights that I seem to enjoy more every time I listen to them, but the rest of the album isn't bad by any means (just forgettable by comparison, to me). I cannot recommend this album highly enough to anyone curious about what this "European metal" I enjoy is about.