Kamelot – Ghost Opera: The Second Coming

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impulse buy

SPV
Produced by Sascha Paeth & Miro

One of the most annoying things a label/band can do, from a fans point of view, is release a special edition of an album several months after the original. Kamelot and SPV have done just that. It’s a good re-release, as ill-advised early re-releases go, but it is guaranteed not to please the fans who bought the original version.

Released in June last year Ghost Opera, although a strong album, met with mixed reception from Kamelot’s fan base. And so, releasing a new version of it doesn’t seem like the most sensible thing to do. The release comes just a week before their next European tour, and the intention is clearly to raise awareness ahead of the new dates. But given the content of the bonus material, another kind of release would have been a much better idea.

The first disc of the new version contains nothing new. It is the same eleven tracks as the original standard release. The bonus track from the original special edition release (which also contained a DVD, not present here) is now on a full-length second disc along with both bonus tracks from the Japanese edition of their last, critically acclaimed album, The Black Halo, a new, previously unreleased (dance) remix of Rule The World (if the very existence of this release hasn’t annoyed fans enough, this will certainly do it), and ten live tracks recorded in Belgrade on the first Ghost Opera European tour.

So a full fourteen track bonus CD. Surely this could have been released as a separate album in its own right, billed as a Ghost Opera Tour Live album, with the four bonus studio tracks, and achieved the same attention-raising goal as this reissue, while pleasing fans who bought the original. Even if this reissue came out as well, at least offer the new disc separately to appease existing fans. Admittedly a double live album and DVD One Cold Winter’s Night was released between The Black Halo and Ghost Opera, but that didn’t contain any Ghost Opera tracks (for obvious reasons), so I don’t think many people would have complained. On top of all that the live tracks aren’t of the greatest quality and the dance remix is likely to please absolutely nobody. They have also missed a trick by not including the videos for Ghost Opera and The Human Stain.

Release like this never go by without irritating the existing fan base. And in all honesty likely have a doubtful effect on the popularity of the band to the wider audience – if they weren’t interested before they probably won’t be interested in a more expensive expanded version. Whether or not it’s record company influence or the band’s idea is here nor there. Whoever’s it was, it’s never a good one.

“ ill-advised ”

Tracklist:
CD1 – Solitaire / Rule The World / Ghost Opera / The Human Stain / Blücher / Love You To Death / Up Through The Ashes / Mourning Star / Silence of The Darkness / Anthem / EdenEcho
CD2 – Solitaire (Live) / Ghost Opera (Live) / The Human Stain (Live) / Mourning Star (Live) / When The Lights Are Down (Live) / Abandoned (Live) / The Haunting (Live) / Memento Mori (Live) / Epilogue (Live) / March of Mephisto (Live) / Seasons End / Pendulous Fall / Epilogue / Rule The World (Remix)

Written by Andy Lye
More: Albums, Progressive, Kamelot