FESTIVAL

Being an acquaintant of Savatage's music, it was only a matter of time before I would find myself listening to some post-Savatage project of Jon Oliva. Trans-Siberian Orchestra was the first of them, but it proved to be an utter and complete disappointment in almost every possible aspect, so not much time after I have bought Night Castle I manage to exchange it at the store for Jon Oliva's Pain's fourth album, entitled Festival, which, by comparison, sounded like a mind-blowing album. However, the truth came to me after listening to it a number of times and comparing it with other albums I have.

As far as standard progressive metal goes (if there is such a thing), the compositions in this album are not dearing at all, staying at all times in the confort zone and having very few moments that are any surprising. Throughout the album you have that feeling that you have heard something similar, whatever the song that is playing; it constantly feels like you are listening to something you've already listened somewhere or sometime before. Furthermore, everything seems to be rather monochromatic and bland, even Jon's characteristical aggressive vocals sounds uninspired! If there is a way to describe this band's sound, I would say it is like a worsened version of Savatage mixed with some Black Sabbath and late 70's Pink Floyd.

That being said, I would like to point that there are not any bad song in Festival. They aren't extraordinary as well and do stay only in Jon Oliva's confort zone, but they are all quite listenable and don't have any further bad points besides not being special. It seems that there isn't anybody to chalange Jon creatively.

Due to that, I do believe that two stars would be the most fitting rating: only the fans (like myself) will enjoy listening to Festival.

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