On "Burden Of Truth," Zak Stevens once again demonstrated what his efforts are worth without Jon Oliva, who withdrew all support from the band immediately after the release of the superb debut "Watching The Silence" in 2001 — incidentally taking all the musicians with him into his own project JON OLIVA'S PAIN. Nevertheless, Zak, confident in his abilities, decided to assemble a new lineup and give the project a second life. Unfortunately, what he ended up giving it was a second death — and twice at that. In 2003, after the release of "The Middle Of Nowhere," one wanted to chalk it all up to a creative crisis, but "Burden Of Truth" put all the dots over the i's.
The album's concept is devoted to Dan Brown's "mega-blockbuster" "The Da Vinci Code," so those who haven't read the book or seen the film have the opportunity to discover the "Burden of Truth" through the colorful booklet. All the material was written by Zak together with bassist Paul Stewart, with some participation from guitarist Andrew Lee. Songwriting talent is evident in none of them. Yes, there are excellent compositions — "Heal You," the single "Revelations," and the closing "Live As One" — but where are the outstanding Savatage-style ballads, where is the diversity of vocal lines for which Stevens became famous on the debut album and during his tenure in SAVATAGE? Virtually all the tracks are cut from the same template, and the magnificent abilities of one of modern power metal's finest vocalists are simply not utilized. And there are essentially no interesting melodies to speak of, with the obvious exception of the original lead solo passage on "Revelations." It was gratifying that Stevens didn't forget his signature trick from his SAVATAGE days — the legendary multi-layered harmonies appear on the title track "Burden Of Truth," but even they look somewhat pale and labored, especially when you recall the first experiments on the classic albums "Handful Of Rain" and "Dead Winter Dead."
On the other hand, the russian edition with three exclusive bonus tracks generates a wealth of positive emotions: the single version of "Revelations" and beautiful acoustic versions of "Burden Of Truth" and the hit from the first album, "Into The Wind." As for songwriting ambitions, Stevens would do well to abandon them and join the ranks of Jon Oliva, under whose wing his vocal talents were displayed in all their glory.