Everybody knows Sweden for the great food (Muppet show's Swedish Cook rulez! hehe), the gorgeous blond women and ofcourse for the load of Death-Metal bands. But how many of you have ever heard of the power-metal band called Zonata?

Zonata released their first album, Tunes Of Steel, in 1999 and beacause of the great response they got from fans here and there like in Germany and Japan (wow! these Japaneese dudes..they can't listen to anything steady huh? hehe) they soon got a contract with Century Media and off they were to the recording studios in Germany! The result was called reality and I'm not quite sure how relative the album is to the real...reality. I heard the album over and over again trying to persuade myself that I'm listening to something new, I even got all the wax out of my ears incase I wasn't hearing very well. (I must admit though that I noticed a slight effort by the guys in the band)

Unfortunately what I was listening to was a Swedish power-metal band immitating Rhapsody and Helloween. What's wrong with that? Well, for starters, they could have worked a bit better on the vocals. Ok ok...the vocals don't suck that much and actually sometimes they get really great (future potentials? why not)! The keys and guitars are melodic (well they try to be) and maybe if (I repeat) in their next album they work a bit more on them, then we'll get something really great!I wonder why some people say that Zonata play heavy metal and in particular why they remind them of Iron Maiden (for crying out loud!). Their style doesn't even get THAT close to Heavy metal! No, I'm not trying to discourage anyone from listening to this CD. I'm just pointing out the fact that power-metal bands ought to start figuring out new ways to express themselves better. Power is cool but ok, there's nothing left to play except if new ideas start poping up. As I was saying, Zonata need to work a bit more on their technique if they want to avoid getting tiring in the future. For example, the bass...where's the bass in the album? I'm sure Mattias Asplund is playing but how come no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to notice it!

Nevertheless, if you love listening to the same power-metal we've heard over and over again and if you love classical music or Rhapsody, Reality is an album for you.