Ghostlights
| Ghostlights | ||||
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| Studio album by Avantasia | ||||
| Released | 29 January 2016 | |||
| Recorded | Gatestudio Wolfsburg, Germany | |||
| Genre | Power metal, hard rock, symphonic metal | |||
| Length | 70:03 | |||
| Label | Nuclear Blast | |||
| Producer | Sascha Paeth and Tobias Sammet | |||
| Avantasia chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Ghostlights | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Myglobalmind Online Magazine |  |
| AntiHero Magazine |  |
| Metal Hammer (de) | |
| Wicked Rodeo |  |
Ghostlights is the seventh full-length album by Tobias Sammet's rock opera project Avantasia. It was released on 29 January 2016. The opening track and first single "Mystery of a Blood Red Rose" was a candidate for the German representative at the Eurovision Song Contest 2016, along with nine other songs. The Digibook edition of the album included a bonus track and a bonus CD entitled Avantasia Live, which featured songs recorded mainly during Avantasia's 2014 performance at Wacken Open Air Festival.
Ghostlights scored the highest positions of any Avantasia release in several international music charts and marks the second time Avantasia has entered the US Billboard 200 albums chart.
The plot of the album concludes the story started on The Mystery of Time. Musically, it shows a darker and more theatrical tone than its predecessor, which Sammet claims to have been spontaneous, not planned.
In 2014, Tobias Sammet stated that The Mystery of Time hinted at a sequel and the details to that sequel were announced in November 2015.
Unlike The Wicked Trilogy, which spawned three different albums, Ghostlights concludes the plot started on the previous album. The story follows the protagonist as he continues his journey with a group of scientists willing to find a way to align everybody's personality so they can understand each other and make the world a better place. Soon, the protagonist realizes aligning people is also a way of having control over them. Each song of the album represents a different station of the protagonist's journey. As Sammet explains, "It's a journey where he is looking for answers for some questions about his own existence and that leaves its mark on his philosophical worldview as well. Those twelve songs represent key moments on this journey and then it's done." He left an open ending "so that people can think about the things that happen in the story. You should be able to interpret it for yourself in the end."
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