Timo Tolkki’s Avalon - The Enigma Birth (2021)

There are only three guarantees in life: death, taxes, and Timo Tolkki crafting bad-ass Power Metal songs. Today we have Timo and his Avalon project unleashing their fourth full-length release “The Enigma Birth”. Featuring nearly one hour of music and eight guest vocalists, this release continues the band’s trend of delivering sweeping melodies, killer guitar solos, and highly engaging vocal lines. As occasional Power Metal listeners, we greatly appreciate these types of releases as you get to ‘discover’ some singers that wouldn’t be on our radar.

Opening with the crafty “Enigma Birth”, we have blistering guitars and drums, perfectly paired with Pellek’s dramatic and quite versatile vocals. This track sets a very bombastic and explosive mood that is perfectly continued with the hard rocking “I Just Collapse” featuring returning guest Caterina Nix and her talented pipes. Timo and company are masters at changing tempos and styles between songs and yet keeping that intensity and melodic edge.

Adding guests like Britney Slayes (in “Memories” and “The Fire and the Sinner”) and Jake E (in “Truth” and “The Fire and the Sinner”) is a great idea as it gives the music a different edge and it exposes Avalon’s music to the respective guest singer’s fanbase, potentially grabbing a set of new fans along the way. It is also interesting to see singers like Raphael Mendes in a couple of tracks (“Master of Hell” and “Beauty and War”) or Marina La Torraca (“Another Day”) instead of only already established superstars. That being said, we love Fabio Lione in the epic “Without Fear” and its dreamy atmospherics and the power ballad-esque “Dreaming”.

Overall, “The Enigma Birth” has a bit of everything for any Power/Heavy/Symphonic Metal fan due to its wide variety of singing styles, thanks to the guest vocalists, and excellent range of creativity and craftsmanship by Timo Tolkki and the other Italy-based musicians in this release. With every song needing more than a few spins to fully digest, this release has plenty of replay value and exciting elements to discover.

Label: Frontiers Music

Release: June 18th, 2021

Genre: Power Metal

Country: International