I ordered the Jap version of this CD out of curiosity, wanting to hear the "updated" versions of the stuff off the first three A.E discs.
This one will gather dust in my CD rack, for sure. It's awful.....
Angela cements herself as one of the most over-processed vocalists in metal, and the rest of the production sounds like a sterile drum machine with a DI'd amp emulator over the top. Angela seems to go out of her way to change the original timing/phrasing (ie ruining) of just about
EVERY lyric on every song, making the rythms much more rigid and quantizing the words to every beat, something Johan wasn't guilty of (he was a human sounding, organic, KICK ARSE singer).
At the end of the day, the only songs on it that I found OK were the Queensryche and Euope cover versions..... sadly. It honestly sounds like a bad cover band with a drum machine rehashing some very good AE soungs.
Anyone else heard it/agree??