"Having had my faith in the pairing of rock/metal and melody restored by Nation (see the post from a few weeks ago) and Vanden Plas (that's a story yet to tell), I had once again embraced the scene and started to scour every nook and cranny for something new and exciting. One of those searches came up with 'Episode', the fifth album by then rising Finnish neo-classical power metal stars Stratovarius, and as soon as I heard this smouldering epic - you can just feel the intense, remorseless heat of the Arabian sun on your back as the brooding tale unfolds - I was sold. The album itself was the subject of the first review I ever had published (in the short-lived Frontiers Magazine, but the less said about them the better) and is still one of those I dig out on a regular basis. As for this grandiloquent masterclass, if there's a more perfect union of power, melody and intensity (post 'Stargazer' of course) out there, I've yet to find it!"