Moonglow

Avantasia, the all-star rock opera spaceship piloted by Edguy singer, songwriter and producer Tobias Sammet, release their eighth full-length album, Moonglow. Since its beginning in 1999, past Avantasia releases have featured such galactic heavyweights as Alice Cooper, Klaus Meine and Rudolf Schenker (Scorpions), Bruce Kulick and Eric Singer (Kiss), Eric Martin (Mr Big), Saxon’s Biff Byford, ex-Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider and many more. 

Just like its predecessor Ghostlights, which took the listener on a journey that asked questions about their very existence, Moonglow also is dark, spine-chilling and eminently fascinating. “In a way, its lyrical topics are quite dreamy,” theorizes Sammet. “There’s no end of the world touch; I see these songs as having a Tim Burton-esque eeriness.” Another commonality with 'Ghostlights' is that 'Moonglow' is conceptually based. “Yeah, the songs are interlinked,” Sammet confirms. “Each song is a chapter based upon a creature that is thrown into the world but fails to find its place. It cannot connect with that environment and turns instead to the dark in the hope of finding shelter there.   “The lyrics are very personal but wrapped up in a fantastic surrounding inspired by writers of dark romanticism, especially gothic novels of the Victorian era by the likes of Arthur Machen or Algernon Blackwood. Yes, it’s a concept album but don’t expect elves walking through the forest,” laughs Tobi.  Once again Sammet wrote all of the album’s material with the exception of its cover track, a rocked-up re-make of Michael Sembello’s 'Maniac', a hit from the smash 1981 movie 'Flashdance'. Along with the aforementioned Sascha Paeth, Tobias also acted as the record’s producer.