Conventional wisdom amongst metal-heads these days seems to be that all re-recordings are bad and cash-grabs. It is fairly hard to defend the likes of the re-recorded "Stormblåst", "The First Strike Still Deadly" and "The Greater of Two Evils", just to name a few. Hell, the latter two were meant to be "modern" and already sound old because of their dated production techniques! On the other hand, there are re-recordings that are well worth the money, like LEFAY's "Symphony of the Damned", which made the original MORGANA LEFAY album (which was limited to 537 vinyl copies) far more readily available. The production got an update without going overboard and the songs were tweaked just enough to actually improve some of the shortcomings of the original.

"The Spell of Iron MMXI"falls somewhere in between these two extremes. It features an updated production which is an improvement, there has been some tweaking of song structures and speeds and the band members are certainly more competent players at this point in their lives. The only real detriment is that "The Spell of Iron" was not a particularly enthralling album to begin with. It's a pretty standard straightforward hard rock/heavy metal album that is not offensive but features nothing overly original either. The guitar work is above average, as are the vocals by NIGHTWISH member Marco Hietala, but the music itself is hardly enthralling, especially in the second half. I guess from a historical aspect this album is somewhat important because it is light-years ahead of almost everything else coming out of Finland at the time. In all honesty, though, I cannot see this as a worthwhile purchase except for TAROT die-hards and who liked the original album and are not able to find a physical copy.