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Angel of Babylon is the 2nd of two albums released by Avantasia in 2010, and the third and final part of a trilogy of concept albums known as The Wicked Trilogy, following The Scarecrow and The Wicked Symphony.
Like The Wicked Symphony, Angel of Babylon begins with a 9 and half minute track. Like the opener of The Wicked Symphony, Stargazers also features the voices of Sammet, Jorn Lande and Russell Allen but throws Michael Kiske into the mix as well. It starts the album strongly and sets the pace. I especially like the creepy bass interlude just before the guitar solo.
Unfortunately the next two tracks Angel of Babylon and Your Love is Evil pass me by without finding anything really to remark about. They’re not bad by any means but don’t really stand up to any of the songs on The Wicked Symphony.
Death is Just a Feeling however, which features Jon Oliva on guest vocals is a much stronger and more interesting track. It has a creepy evil feeling to it which makes it stand out from the other tracks. Oliva sings most of the vocal here with Sammet only coming in over half way through for a short section. I haven’t really heard anything of this guy’s music before but after enjoying his vocals here I’ll have to check his stuff out. Unfortunately after this track he isn’t heard again because like The Wicked Symphony, it’s mostly a one song per guest singer again. Once again it is Jorn Lande that dominates the guest singers, appearing on no less than 7 of the 11 tracks on the album, with only Michael Kiske appearing on more than one of the others.
Following tracks Rat Race and Down in the Dark and both pretty good and favourites of mine from the album, both with Jorn Lande singing with Sammet. Although Angel of Babylon feels no different in terms of sounding like a concept album than its two predecessors one fact that I can garner from it is that Jorn’s character must be important. He does after all appear on all three albums and dominate the other guest singer, but other than that, there is no real change with Angel of Babylon feeling like a concept album.
Blowing Out the Flame is a ballad, something which was absent on The Wicked Symphony. It’s not bad, but like Angel of Babylon and Your Evil is Evil I don’t find anything special to remark about.
Symphony of Life features female vocals, the first song to do is in The Wicked Trilogy since The Scarecrow’s Lost in Space. It’s a much better track than some that Angel of Babylon offers which a pretty interesting intro and some good vocals from Cloudy Yang. This is also the only song in the trilogy to not feature Tobias Sammet's vocals or to be written by him.
Alone I Remember features some finger picking guitar before launching into a classic rock style riffs. Much less a metal style here, with vocals from Sammet and Lande again. It’s pretty good if it does sound somewhat out of place after what the group has made us get used to.
Finally with Promised Land do I hear some vocal hints that this is indeed a concept album with some lyric references from The Scarecrow. Not a bad song, but not the best either, but not as unremarkable as some of the ones mentioned in previous paragraphs.
The album ends on a high though with the epic Journey to Acadia. Some great vocals all round from Sammet, Lande and the underused Bob Catley. Like the previous track there’s lyric references to other songs from the albums in this track, and you really get the feeling that the story is coming to a close. It’s as if Tobias suddenly got it right in terms of a concept album at the end but as I’ve said before in regard to The Wicked Trilogy, it’s just good songs, so the concept doesn’t really matter. Angel of Babylon however is not quite as good as The Wicked Symphony or The Scarecrow (though it comes close to being on par with it), even though it may sit better with fans of The Metal Operas due to being closer in sound to The Wicked Symphony than The Scarecrow. Easily the weakest of the trilogy.
(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven)