If there’s one thing I hate, it’s assigning me the task of choosing my favorite Stratovarius album. I’ll grit my teeth though (for Rockpages’ sake) and on the occasion of their upcoming Greek show in November, I’m going to turn the clock back to 1996 and my favorite album “Episode”. A landmark album for the band and the whole power metal genre in general. But let’s take things from the beginning.
After the end of the “Fourth Dimension” tour Tolkki had the material for the next album ready. It was then that he realized what material he had in his hands and that changes were imperative. He asked Tuomo Lassila (drums) and Anti Ikonen (keyboards) to leave the band in the somewhat awkward manner of a…letter. “The terror of the brown envelope” as the two former members characteristically christened it. Having received a very good advance from the then prosperous Noise records and having mixed the Headhunter tour, the choice for the drummer’s position was really an one way street to Jörg Michael whose main band at that time was Running wild. A few months later Tolkki announced to him that he had to choose between Running Wild and Stratovarius with the German skin-hitter choosing the Finns.
For the keyboards and given Tolkki’s love for Yngwie Malmsteen, he approached Jens Johansson who was then living in New York. The Swede asked to hear the demos and impressed by what he heard he accepted the offer/challenge.
The band entered Finvox in October 1995 and for the next 4 months they worked intensively with Mikko Karmila for an album that changed the whole sound of European power metal. It was the first time that samples were used to such an extent for the drums and a process that helped Tolkki a lot as a producer in the future. In “Episode” we also get to listen to Kotipelto’s first composition (Uncertainty). The band was in top form with Jörg Michael recording in just 4 days and Kainulainen in just one! The vocal recordings took four weeks since there was the comfort of both time and money. The budget used for this album was 300,000€ in today’s currency!
For me “Episode” is my all-time favorite album in general so it’s hard for me to be objective. From the cover artwork which is an image I bring to mind whenever I want to calm down to the first few beats of the clock hand on “Father Time”, the majesty of “Eternity”, the display of technique on “Speed of light”, the overflowing emotions on “Season of Change” and the incredible lyricism of “Forever”. I listened to “Episode” after “Dreamspace” (I listened to “Fourth Dimension” later on) and I remember myself after the end of “Father Time” turning off the stereo because what I heard made me feel strange. The day went by and every now and then I wanted to listen to it again. I’ve only felt that feeling with one other album and that was Metallica’s “Master of puppets”.
I have thanked many times personally Mr. Tolkki for creating this album, but also Mr. Kotipelto for the timbre and the feeling that through his voice have been passing through my soul for 27 years.
An unsurpassed 10-point record that is always with me available to calm me down and take me on a journey.
Favorite tracks: all 13 (including “When the Night Meets the Day” as a Japan bonus track)
Fan Trivia:
– Father Time was the only track that was recorded with a different microphone compared to the other 12 songs that were recorded with a different one. This was done because being that song, especially in the chorus, the timbre of the short Timo’s voice had to be captured correctly.
– As soon as Jens Johansson accepted Tolkki’s offer of cooperation and the conversation inevitably came to the financial aspect, the latter offered him a huge amount of money, which showed his faith and confidence that this project would succeed. Johansson told him to his credit that the money was too much.
Jens Johansson is not only a great musician but also a rather peculiar character. He recorded the whole “Episode” album with his keyboards directly on the console without editing and quantize. Commonly what keyboards are heard on the record are exactly as they were played. The same musician of course was the one who on the band’s tours always took a small piece of wood from the door of every venue they played at and as a result he kept a large collection (!!!! ), the one who blew up toilet bowls with the fireworks of the show (there are documents on the DVD Infinite Visions), the one who changed the signs in the dressing rooms backstage resulting in a small chaos, the one who destroyed hotel corridors and the one who pissed on Tolkki’s leg on stage at that last live show that I want to forget. All this forced the then company All Access who were responsible for the tours to create a Damage account for Jens Johansson to which all the damage he caused was charged and deducted from his fee at the end of the tour.
– The first line Johansson said to Tolkki when he saw him was “take the hippopotamus’ condom off your head” along with various Finnish swear words he had written down on a piece of paper. But ok….this is Jens Johansson we are talking about, right?
– As I wrote above “Episode” was a landmark album in the history of European power metal and set new sonic standards. A clear proof of this is the storm of e-mails from all over the world that Finnvox received with producers of big names of the genre and not only asking for information and “know how” about this sound result (don’t forget that the album was recorded in 1996).
– The cover of the album is a handmade work of Sakari Peltola, a friend of Timo Kotipelto. It’s a cover that Tolkki hates, saying “that’s what happens when you let the singer edit the cover” (I personally love it!).
– Another thing Tolkki was unhappy about was that while a large amount of money was given for the artwork, it ended up being printed in black and white when it was originally planned to be in colour.
Tasos Krokodilos is the lead singer of Spitfire, Marauder and the Greek Manowar tribute band “Fire And Steel”
