There are many things in life that are so utterly pointless that you wonder why anyone would bother with them: Range Rovers in London; a contour map of Norfolk; and sunscreen in Scotland being few of many examples. Somewhere near the top of that list must surely be bands who sound exactly like another, much better band. Maybe it’s just me and I’m missing something - but can someone please tell me what the point of that could possibly be?

Talk about Symphonic Power Metal with Operatic female vocals to 99.99% of Metal fans, and they will all think of only one name – Nightwish. They dominate that genre so completely and utterly now that anyone else who is brave enough to try and follow in their footsteps really needs to have something different and unique to offer, and even those bands who do will find it difficult to escape the comparison. Operatika sadly don't, and go far beyond merely having Nightwish as an influence to obviously worshipping at an alter dedicated to Tarja, Tuomas, and the Wishmaster album.

I should point out that I have the exact same opinion of Operatika as I do of Visions Of Atlantis, so if that is a band that you like then don't bother reading any further and just order this CD. You'll love it! You can even call me the expletive of your choice if you want while doing so. Power Metal fans who don't care at all about originality may also want to give this a listen. Fortunately for bands like Operatika there appears to be a lot of Power Metal fans out there just like that.

Opening track “Dreamworld” has an intro that will sound very familiar to anyone who has ever heard “She Is My Sin” before. This was a very ill-advised move for Operatika, who are going to get accused of being Nightwish copycats even without starting the whole thing off with such an obvious homage to one of their most popular songs. The song itself when it starts properly sounds exactly like a song from “Wishmaster” that wasn't quite good enough to make the final album. So does the next song “Gladiator”. There then follows “The Storm” - a short intro to the final (and best) song “The Calling” which follows in the Wishmaster worship tradition and might even be almost as good as a Nightwish bonus track. Just.

It isn't all bad news however. There is one thing that Operatika actually do better than Nightwish: Their guitar solos are simply superb, and their guitarist can quite obviously play rings around Emppu, and to be honest anyone who hadn't heard Nightwish before might actually think that this is not bad, but for me, they really need to do start having ideas that Tuomas Holopainen didn't have first for any of that to really make much of a difference.

Standout Tracks:  ......

Overall Score:   2 /10