If you’re going to completely and unabashedly rip a band off at least do it with good songs. Visions of Atlantis summed up is Nightwish gone completely pop. This isn’t even good Nightwish worship though, every song with the exception of Lost sounds like a thinly rehashed Oceanborn with some Wishmaster thrown in. The only thing keeping this album from sounding like the unreleased album that Nightwish could have written before Oceanborn are the male vocals. While male singer Mario literally has almost no range, he does deliver on occasion. His everyman vocals have a unique charm to them because they are relatively easy to emulate. While he has little range, he does well with what he has which is better to listen to than someone trying to pinch a nerve hitting high notes that they were never meant to sing in the first place.

Before I get into this review and why exactly it is that I am not liking this album I will point out the two highlights. The title track and Lost. Cast Away is a decent enough tune and despite the pedestrian sounding verses Mario comes in to make the chorus a memorable one, he injects a melodic rock feel into the song that makes it stand out just a little bit from the pack. Lost however I can say I completely enjoy. Using just the right amount of counterbalance with Nicole (female vocals) and Mario playing off each other and lessening the overbearing synthetic strings (there’s still a lot but not headache inducing) make this the standout of the album. Unfortunately after these two songs it’s a plethora of rote Power Metal meandering. Realm of Fantasy has an intro so thick with keyboard horns and strings that I can see the sugary syrup seeping out from the speakers on my stereo. I suppose I was to be filled with triumphant glory but instead what went through my mind was an image of a passing carnival. Throughout the entire album this situation is reoccurring, the keyboards are just simply too much to handle. I fault producer Peter Moritz with this because he is credited for keyboard, string, and orchestral arrangements. Guitar wise there are no riffs that I can remember, everything is played to give attention to either the vocals or the keyboards, the guitars have no place to shine. A slick production job at least gives this album a nice shimmer but once that is taken away and the songs are shown for what they are you are left with a truly unspectacular album.

Visions of Atlantis almost have potential to overcome this rut that they are stuck in of trying to become the next Nightwish. Their problem isnt untalented musicians, it's simply bad compositions for the most part. While there are some parts of the songs that I can find myself enjoying (hell I will admit that Last Shut of Your Eyes is at least decent) I am too under whelmed by everything else to even begin to consider Cast Away as something close to essential. Some serious revamping of their sound is in order for this band to break free from fourth / fifth tier status but something inside tells me that they will instead opt to play it safe and milk the Power Metal crowd for all they’re worth before fading away quietly in a few years.