Stratovarius frontman Timo Kotipelto has joined with Jani Liimatainen (ex Sonata Arctica) to record an acoustic album. The duo has been working together and playing acoustic shows for some time and were regularly told by fans that they should do an album, so they’ve given the fans what they want.
There are thirteen cover versions plus one orignal track. Most of the songs were chosen from the duo’s live set-list, including Stratovarius covers like ”Black Diamond” and ”Hunting High and Low”, and also songs like ”Serenity” and ”Sleep Well” from Kotipelto’s solo albums. There are also cover versions of Pete Townshend’s “Behind Blue Eyes” and Deep Purple´s classic “Perfect Strangers” as well as the Gary Moore/Phil Lynott hit ”Out in the fields”.
The new track, ”Where my rainbow ends” is a ballad written by Jani Liimatainen, who says: ”I remembered a song I wrote last winter. Originally it was an instrumental track, but after listening back to it I thought that the melody would work very well with vocals. We re-arranged the song into our acoustic format and – as a slave of habit – I wrote the lyrics for it the night before our last day of recording. It turned out surprisingly beautiful and delicate”. ”Jani’s new song is a beautiful ballad” – adds Kotipelto – “We have quite a few ballads on this album, as even the more rock oriented songs tend to sound more ballad-esque when performed by a duo”.
This is an album that I wasn’t expecting to enjoy as much as I have done – two singers with acoustic guitars mean a very stripped down version of songs, and this can result in a full album done like this sounding quite lacking in variety. Happily though that’s not the case here, largely down to the choices of songs which vary considerably, and also by the excellent performances
All the songs sound great, but if I had to pick a favourite, it would probably be ”Perfect strangers” with ”Hunting high and low” and ”Out in the fields” very close behind
An excellent album that’s definitely recommended.
Track listing:
1. Sleep Well
2. Out In The Fields
3. Black Diamond
4. My Selene
5. Behind Blue Eyes
6. Hunting High And Low
7. Where My Rainbow Ends
8. Speed of Light
9. Perfect Strangers
10. Coming Home
11. Serenity
12. Rainbow Eyes
13. Karjalan Kunnailla
