Stephen
The first thing that made me attracted to "Regeneration" is that freakingly majestic cover, the blazing character reminds me of unit Archon from StarCraft, but what was looking good and promising on the front cover wasn't balanced out with what you'll get inside. To compete in the power metal realm, things now ain’t easy as it was in the early 90s. Double-bass drumming, thunderous picking, and high pitch vocals have became generic patented formula that if you merely repeat this, you'll suffer with unoriginal composition and fans could get bored easily as they've heard this thousand times before. I'm afraid, "Regeneration" felt into this category.
"We Won't Fall" and "Theater of Pain" will make you remember the glorious days of Helloween or Edguy, where the speed and melodies are the key. "Where Angels Fly" tunes down the tempo, good track but if only the chorus is bigger. "Starchild" now reminds me a lot of classic Gamma Ray, the verse is beautiful but the sloppy chorus pulls down the whole song to anti-climax. "Speak of The Devil" and "Planet Metal" are both classic Euro power metal executed perfectly but "Chasing The Wind" is a dreadful filler ballad that should be left out. "Fantasmagoria" is actually pretty good, considering this epic is full of variation and the alternate vocals cover all range, but squeezing this into 7 or 8 minutes will be much better as they can skip some repetitive moment and wrap only the essential pieces together.
The change of vocal duty from Santrazami to Tsakirides proved to be effective as the new singer's quality is applauding and he has a huge range to exploit. The real problem is the uninventive approach of their offering. There's a strong reason why Edguy, Stratovarius, and Helloween's newer musical style is quite different because they needed a change and seems that the classic sound started to became outdated. However, if you prefer the old school style of the 80s decade, "Regeneration" is a good shot, otherwise, let's wait for an evolution in their next release.