Album Retrospective: Reckoning Night

now playing: Falconer - The Clarion Call

2005's Reckoning Night marked Sonata Arctica's first serious foray into the progressive elements that would later permeate their music. This was also the first album for keyboardist Henrik "Henkka" Klingenberg, who was selected for the position after a night of drinking -- a tradition he keeps up to this day. It also marked my first serious experience with the band: I'd listened to a few tracks, but Reckoning Night was the first full album I bought. As an introduction to the band, I think it works quite well. Songs like "My Selene" and "Wildfire" (both largely underappreciated, I think) hark back to an earlier, more definitively power metal sound that could be found on Silence or Ecliptica, while the nine-minute epic "White Pearl, Black Oceans..." is an excellent harbinger of the grandiosity to come. (As an aside, "My Selene" is of special note as the only song written by former guitarist Jani Liimatainen in his time with the band, thus ensuring, unfortunately, that the song will never be played live.)

Several songs on this album became fast favorites for me, and even now, four years later, there is only one song I feel slightly less emphatic about: The mid-tempo second track, "Blinded No More". It follows a typical structure, but doesn't seem to go anywhere. In fact, the only reason I listen to it anymore is for the snarling wolf at the end that leads into the next track, "Ain't Your Fairytale", the wolf song on this album. In fact, Sonata seems to have mastered the transition in here: The end of "Fairytale" goes perfectly into the calm instrumental "Reckoning Day, Reckoning Night...", which in turn segues seamlessly into the album's biggest single, "Don't Say A Word". The blaze of "Wildfire" is put out by the gently lapping waves that open "White Pearl". As a cohesive unit, this album works wonders. It is definitely meant to be listened to continuously.

Let's return to "Don't Say A Word", another grim, sinister tale from master wordsmith Tony Kakko. The song falls as part three of the saga of Caleb and Juliet (see Unia and The Days of Grays). Caleb has broken into Juliet's home and is lamenting all they could have had as he watches her sleep. She has no idea he is even there, and is gone before first light arrives. The morbid tale is interspersed with hissed Latin phrases from guest speaker Nik Van-Eckmann, one of Kakko's former teachers who also had a role in 2001's Silence. This song has become a staple of their live concerts, and rightfully so: It's incredibly energetic and the crowd loves it.

Unfortunately, I feel this comes at the cost of neglecting other equally fantastic songs. The closing ballad, "Shamandalie", gets occasional play at live shows, but I've only heard "White Pearl" once, and I had to go to Finland to get the opportunity. "Misplaced", the first track, and "Blinded" used to open every show, but now they've fallen to the wayside. Well over half the album, including the half-power, half-prog cautionary tale "The Boy Who Wanted to Be a Real Puppet", has never been played at any show I've been to, or (to my knowledge) at all. It makes me feel as thought the band isn't proud of what they've done here, which just isn't right. Sonata has every right to wave their flag high before sticking it in the ground. Reckoning Night is a strong, upstanding album that does power-prog right. A