Zonata - Buried Alive (2002)

Buried Alive is the third and final full-length from Zonata, the cap on a career that all told, spanned about 4-5 years of meaningful if obscure discourse. It arrived the year after Reality, and perhaps this explains the overall similarity of the style, but there are a few details that deserve mention. For one, Buried Alive is the best produced of the band's efforts, with a richer focus on the guitars. Perhaps this is the addition of a new second player, but also the way the synthesizers are written to interact with the chords. This is also the strongest performance of Johannes Nyberg's vocals, which still carry their fundamental similarities to the Kai Hansens, Henning Basses and Joacim Cans out of Europe, but cut beautifully through the music.

This would also be the most 'progressive' sounding of their albums, but only slightly nudging out beyond Reality, as far as the dynamics and variety of riffs are concerned, whether that be the stilted anthem chorus of "The Last Step", pumping and scintillating hard rock pulse of "The Mourner's Tale", measured power of "In the Chamber", or high octane frenzy of the title track, which I'd consider the best individual track on the entire album, with a killer chorus hook and dense and effective rhythms that get the fist banging as hard as anything off their debut Tunes of Steel. There are a few other power house pieces like "Blade of the Reaper" and "Unleashed" which are nearly as thrilling, but a few dopier anthems like "Heroes of the Universe" or the mostly hit or miss melodic swagger of "A Dark Chapter" balance out the overall quality, which rests somewhere between their prior efforts.

For whatever reason, this would be the final hour of Zonata, with some members going off to similar, under the radar power mastiffs like Freternia. They never quite had the support or audience that they might have deserved, but then, they're not exactly what I'd think of as top of the line for their chosen genre, which was in clear overhaul at the time of this album's inception. More than enough adventure here for the melodic power/prog devotee, but such folks are few and far between. It's not like you could skip a rock down your suburban street and hit a few fans of Dream Theater or Fates Warning, never mind Zonata, so the potential here would likely be lost upon the more casual music fan or the bloodthirsty metal extremist. Buried Alive is a good record, maybe not as good as Reality, and with some pretty lacking lyrics, but a clear sign that the band were honing their strengths as opposed to looking sideways or backwards.

Verdict: Win [7/10] (blinded by the grace)

Zonata - Reality (2001)

With its thought provoking cover that is at once introspective and unusual, one might draw the impression that Sweden's Zonata had gone all out progressive for their sophomore outing. This is not quite the case, though there is an undisputed maturity brought across in their compositional skills, meshing their blazing German power metal roots with something slightly more unique than mere worship. Yeah, you can still easily trace the band's influences back to the Gamma Rays and Helloweens, with a dash of modern progressive/power metal like At Vance, a fleck of Dream Theater, but all elements come together here for what is in my opinion the best album of their limited career.

There is very little ballast to be cut from the 45 minutes of playtime, and what traces you'll find generally revolve around a handful of blase chorus sequences which rarely thrill over the more adventurous guitar work of John Nyberg. That's not to write off the other Nyberg, Johannes, however, whose vocals have improved here from the nasal Kai Hansen tones to something with a more unique weight. Not enough that you'd distinguish him from dozens of other competent power metal sirens emerging from Europe in the early 21st century, but enough to carry the torch for the band backing him, which includes his own keyboards. "Divided We Stand" spears his shrill attitude over neo-classically infused shredding, with a pompous, escalating chorus that slams through a mid-paced groove. "Symphony of the Night", "Wheel of Life" and "Evil Mind" simply surge, the keys and backing choirs adding grace and depth to the momentum, while "Dimension to Freedom" hovers on a more varied brink of all out, generic melodic anthem after a few moments of steadily climbing synthesizer-driven progression.

Very few of the numbers are the sort to go down in history as 'classics', but Reality is more thoroughly engaging throughout than its predecessor. A few tracks in the lineup sag below the level of the rest, but not for long, as even these produce spikes of melody to put the listener back on the fast track. "Life?" is the most obviously accessible sing-a-long here, but it's fortunately pretty good, with a catchy guitar bit beyond the chorus that almost matches the dreamy sun scape of the cover, strange devices sailing through a clear sky across the works of some foreign industrial renaissance. The production was not a strong point on the debut, and I feel that it's not a great deal better for the sophomore, but it's crystalline enough for you to get the idea, and the vocals thankfully don't bury the rest of the band. Not necessarily a marvel of an album, but it's the most easily recommended work of Zonata, and I bet with a little more of a push from the band's label Century Media, could have stirred up greater waves of appreciation.

Verdict: Win [7.5/10] (nature bleeds for our disposal)

Zonata - Tunes of Steel (1999)

Sweden has certainly loosed the melodic lightning of many a power metal act in the past decade, but even the best or more successful of these (Hammerfall, Nocturnal Rites, Lost Horizon) draw fairly heavily upon influences south of the German border. That is certainly the double edged sword that dominates the debut of late 90s bloomers Zonata, Tunes of Steel. At its very best, the album sounds a lot like Gamma Ray or classic Helloween, given the surges of nasal vocal wailing that Johannes Nyberg constructs, but though the performances are all around competent, it somehow falls short of the impact crater left in the wake of a Walls of Jericho, Keeper of the Seven Keys or Somewhere Out In Space, and since it arrived at a point which its influences were faring so strongly, there simply wasn't enough room left for this niche act.

They did manage to score a deal through Century Media Records, alongside their countrymen Nocturnal Rites, but the album wasn't promoted here in the States whatsoever, so it was largely a product of the power metal boom at the turn of the century. Though it exhibits a slight flair for the dramatic and progressive ("Criticized" or the power ballad "Beyond the Rainbow"), its far more apt to nail your attention when it's shuffling through Scanner, Gamma Ray or Metalium styled material such as the blazing "Geronimo" or "Bring You Down to Hell", through which Nyberg channels a balance of Michael Kiske and Kai Hansen both. But even in this frenzied terrain, the band often throws out a forgettable blitz like "The Evil Shadow" or "Welcome to the World of Fun", with a lot of riffs happening, but a real failure of the vocals to form the notes necessary in an enduring power anthem.

I'll give the band some credit in that they're fast and efficient, enough so that even the worst tracks on the albums rarely hinge on boring. In fact, if you're in search of a blast of energy in the vein of State of Triumph, Hypertrace or Terminal Earth, then the field is rather narrow, and Zonata might just have your ticket. Unfortunately, this is just not enough to leave a lasting impression, musically or lyrically, and most tracks would require a lot of slicing and reconfiguring to escape their habitual prisons. This is arguably some of the heaviest material manifest from these particular Swedes, but with their maturity will come superior songwriting, so it's the last I'd recommend out of the three they released in their career. For screaming, Germanic power metal fanatics only, and even then you won't regret passing over it.

Verdict: Indifference [6.5/10] (angry and ready to fight)