Years ago Tobias Sammet was swearing that he will never made anything new with his most famous project Avantasia, but now we lived to see how he changed his opinion. I don’t know how many of you didn’t expect this, but now most of the fans are satisfied. The result may not be as good as expected, but it certainly has a piece of the specific grabbing presence of the first two albums. “The Scarecrow” opens up a new conceptual page of the history of Avantasia. There is nothing like the loudly “The Metal Opera” here to show us what can be expected, and its content proves that there is no place for such illusions. The effort was recorded with the special help of a new dose of familiar musicians such as Roy Khan, Jorn Lande, Sascha Paeth and Alice Cooper. The association with the new album of the super project Ayreon and the guests there is inevitable, but other similarities between these CDs should not be searched. The instrumentalists here are brilliant, but the vocalists are chaotically scattered in the songs, so the unity between them is not good enough and the general concept is hard for tracing. “The Scarecrow” is full of melodic metal, which is mostly softer than recommended for music released under the name of Avantasia. With the release of the two EPs “Lost in Space” began the criticism about this softer sound preferred by Tobi this time, but luckily their full-length continuation is far more heavier and similar to the good old Edguy days. The impressing songs in the record are not many, but they are there after all! Even only because of the self-titled tune and the unabating energy of Sammet, “The Scarecrow” deserves attention. However, from now on Avantasia’s future is unforeseen…