so, back in 2019, a few months after we realized we were trans, a music album dropped, a small thing called moonglow by the band/project avantasia (or if you want to be formal, tobias sammet's avantasia). as we were somewhat familiar with said artist and had a little extra spending budget (we were ordering another album too), we decided to pick up that release on cd. those collections of songs went on to become our favorite album of all time, and this happened more or less as soon as our first full listen. i won't say too much more on it here (heavily planning an entire essay on it in the future), but it was gender as fuck. and in a way that hit us like a truck.
so when the follow-up a paranormal evening with the moonflower society was announced and released last year, we were mildly worried it wouldn't live up to our expectations.
and our reaction as it released? not as good as its predecessor and not as strong story-wise, especially in that the songs almost felt disjointed from each other story/mood wise, but had some bangers and considering our literal "this is what's next after our literal musical GOAT" expectations, not too bad overall! 7/10
we've listened to it plenty in the almost-year since its release, and generally, that's been our opinion on it. alright songs individually, but a weaker overall experience compared to its older sibling.
that is, Until This Evening.
remember that essay i joked about above? i started thinking of how to best implement moonflower society (i am not writing the full title again) into a hypothetical essay on moonglow. as i did, we were listening to the album, and we started... noticing details. adding lines together. feeling the specific flow of the story.
creatures, entities, and people: the album has Clicked with us.
it actually really rocks???? like, we still think moonglow is a 10/10 in comparison and that moonflower society is more of an 8 or possibly 9, but our biggest 'complaint'? the "weaker, less connected" story? that was us trying to read the album with the exact same lens as moonglow. of course that wouldn't work out; the story, although also incredibly easily read as queer, is so in just enough of a different way that looking for the same tropes just confused us. but now, after this revelation? oh, there's so much to bite into here! formally comparing and contrasting these two albums sounds like an absolute treat now!
anyway, just wanted to share a little of our hype this evening. i cannot guarantee any essays in the near future; at the rate this is going i'm gonna have to analyze at least three albums before we're done