Nightwish, Imaginaerum

Ah, love! Thank you Nightwish for not being dead to me, thank you for making beautiful music once more and for giving me the chills once more. After Storytime (which I absolutely detested), I expected nothing good from this album, so now that I listen to it, I’m not head over hills for it and I won’t pretend it’s like nothing I’ve ever heard, that it’s amazing, incredible, fantastic or anything, but I really really like it. It’s fresh and pleasant and while there are a bit too many ballads, I like them all. They’re nice to listen to and there are some really uplifting moments that remind me why I love Nightwish. So all in all, it’s a very pleasant surprise and I’m glad they showed me they still have it in them. I like that for the most part it’s not overdone and over-drowned, they added some really nice things without putting too much together and being too bombastic (I’m so happy they avoided their “too much” tendency in this one, they have a gift of making simple music sound beautiful and pure and fresh, thank God they remembered that talent of theirs).

Even Anette is ok. She still sounds like a tortured cat to my ears once she goes past a certain height, but fortunately she doesn’t pass it too often. I’m absolutely thrilled they used her lower register more, she’s way better like that and for the most part I don’t mind her singing at all (there are even parts when I actually like it). She still makes me cringe sometimes, but it’s rare enough.

Taikatalvi – the instrumental is so sweet and gentle, I love the music-box sound and the choir and of course there’s Marco. It’s a beautiful and uplifting song and the instrumental is gorgeous. I also like the cut to Storytime (if only I’d like Storytime too…)

Storytime – it has a nice intro, but then those terrible repetitive riffs that haven’t changed since the beginning of their career enter, and then Anette with her screechy voice enters (when she says “every memory”, I die, why can’t she always sing like she sings “searching heavens for another earth”?) and then I skip the song. No seriously, the melodic line of both the verse and choirs is actually nice, but Anette’s voice and the background instrumental ruin it for me. The lyrics are interesting too and I like the bridge (even though it sounds way too much like Sahara), but to get to it, I have to go through the mayhem of the rest of the song. And the ending vocalizing… oh God, please stop.

Ghost River – the intro is very old school heavy metal, could it be that they’ve finally learned that the use of a guitar is not to make the same distorted “we’re so heavy” irritating sound over and over again? I’m not the one to freak out if there aren’t any “metal” guitars in a song or even on whole album, but if you’re going to use them, use them well. If not, start an acoustic band 😛 And then Anette starts singing and I die a little bit inside once more. I detest her high voice with a passion. Thank God there’s so little of it on this album. Again the bouncy bouncy Amaranth rhythm, which fits the song… absolutely no way at all. It’s about the river taking your only child down down down and I suppose it’s meant to be the sort of Tim Burton creepy yet colourful and funky, but it’s weird to have those lyrics together with the bounciness. I love the instrumental and the children choir, it’s very epic and I can already picture the movie that goes with it. And it’s catchy.

Slow love slow – I don’t have much to say about this song, except that it’s great and that I’ve been singing it for ages after I first listened to it. I love the melody, the instrumental, the atmosphere, the way Anette sings (hats off to her, she’s pretty versatile and seems to fit very well in everything that’s not typically Nightwish), the guitar solo, the growing of the song, the tic-tac at the end, everything except for the vocalising. What can I say, I don’t like it when people vocalise (especially Anette). Anyway, it’s awesome and I can’t believe Nightwish did it. When they kept talking about the jazzy song, I expected a slight touch of jazz like a sax (and by that I mean *just* a sax), but they outdid themselves with this.

I want my tears back – the most terrible beginning of a song ever. That bass & guitar riff I detest and singing “I want my tears back” like he’s saying “let’s go to a party”…. *cringes* I was tempted to skip it, but I’m glad I didn’t because the Irish instrumental is soooo pretty (I’m such a sucker for Irish music). I kinda like the song overall because it’s so happy and bouncy and a good-mood giver, especially the chorus and the instrumental, but for crying out loud, it’s about regret, it shouldn’t be so happy! Aaaand just after the second chorus, around minute 3 someone seems to have channelled his inner Steve Harris. That sounds way too much like Dance of death from Maiden. Anyway, since it’s Irish and bouncy and pretty I’m happy with it. Even if the rest of the instrumental is so simple and repetitive…

Scaretale – I know a lot of people consider it very creepy, but I don’t see the creepiness in this song, for me it’s more of a fun song, where Anette is playing the wicked witch and Marco the evil circus owner and all is in good humour. Ok, the beginning is creepy and then very epic (I’m so in love with the epicness of this album, it all sounds like a massive soundtrack and even if it’s already been done by dozens of film/game score writers, I love it), but after that it makes me think of a comedy about a horror house and not of a scary movie about the horror house. I think it’s meant to be Tim Burton-esque again and not traditionally creepy and scary and I like it better that way. I like the way they’re all playing on this album. It’s by far the most varied and experimental thing they’ve done, I admire them for stepping out of their comfort zone, especially since they were starting to limit themselves with the more “traditional” things they were doing.

Arabesque – again the epicness! I have no idea how this fits in with the rest of album and it reminds me of a lot of other things, but overall it sounds really good and I like it and that’s all that matters. I don’t think that’s the weakest song of the album at all as the general opinion seems to be (and it’s not just because I’m saving that title for Storytime, which is the only actually bad song of the album if you ask me).

Turn loose the mermaids – every time I read this title I couldn’t help but think of My Dying Bride’s Turn loose the swans. But beyond the cheesy cheesy title, it’s such a pretty ballad. And Anette has a pretty and warm voice when she’s singing low and calmly like that. It reminds me of something I used to listen when I was little. I don’t know what it is, but it’s so dreamy and it gives me such a pleasant uplifting feeling. That’s how an orchestra should be used, not the bam-here-bam-there-bam-all-over-the-place Poet style. I like they’re using the Irish touch more and more, there can never be enough Irish music in the world.

Rest Calm – if that’s a My Dying Bride-type funeral march, I’ll eat my shoe! But it shouldn’t have to be, because it’s a good enough song on its own feet and I have no idea why they had to market it like that. Again with the infamous riff! Also, I don’t like how the words flow (I noticed this in a lot of songs on this album), they don’t naturally fit the music, they’re a bit forced in there and there are some weird pronunciations in order for them to fit the rhythm. I don’t really like the cut from the first part to the “every little memory” part, it’s too sudden, but the “every little memory” chorus is so pretty I quickly forget I didn’t like the cut. Especially when the children sing it*love*

Also, I don’t think I mentioned enough times how much I adore Marco and his voice, so now’s the time to do it. And Anette makes a really good duo with him. Except when she vocalises, please please please stop doing that. Everything was so gentle and sweet and then there’s the noise again and the overused orchestra again. Not DPP high, but still, enough to break the pleasant feeling.

The Crow, the owl and the dove – oh the love!!! I adore this song, it’s the best of the album and I can’t get enough of it. It’s so pretty and gentle and sweet and beautiful and soft and yet uplifting and gorgeous! I especially adore the “a swan of white” part, it’s so moving and powerful! I’m not too fond of Troy’s bridge, it’s a bit anti-climatic, breaking the growing feeling of the previous bridge, but then there’s the Irish instrumental and all is right in the world again. And the lyrics are simply beautiful and everything is so soft and gentle and I’m going over the same adjectives all over again because this is too beautiful to explain through words.

Last ride of the day – ah the epic choir!!! It reminds me a bit of Dark Chest of Wonders. It even has the staccato on the first verses. It’s bouncy and catchy, but I can’t stand Anette’s high vocals, they still make me cringe. I’m glad they discovered the use of guitars for solos and not just for a background noise and I like the power in it (it the song, not the guitar), but overall, it’s one of the least memorable songs of the album.

Song of myself – I expected this song to not be about explicitly about Tuomas (you know, the Poet style), but more about the self of humans in general and it seems I was right. The “All that great heart lying still” sequence is awesome, it’s powerful and epic and even though Anette sings high, she’s not being screechy anymore, I can finally hear the power and aggressiveness in her voice. And I like the vibrato she uses on the end of the verse. Then the “Piano black” is good too, but it reminds me soooo much of another Nightwish song, though I can’t put my finger on it. And then there’s the poem… It’s music, it’s not supposed to have spoken words in it. Or if you want a nice touch, use only a few words, not enough to occupy half of the song. I may have bad attention span, but it bores me. It’s too long and it stops the epicness and power of the rest of the song like a nut in a wall. Not to mention it’s infinitely cheesy and cringy. An old man gets naked and kisses his doll? Thank you for that image…. And how in the world does going to dinner alone make her more beautiful? It sounds more like pity to me instead of the „have love for everyone and stop judging” message I suppose it was meant to be. The second part has better verses and the background instrumental is nice, but still…. way too long, a nice touch is supposed to be just this, a touch. There are some beautiful messages, like the one about the child going to play instead of work or about not saying I know how you feel”, but they get drowned in a sea of cliches and it’s simply too much. And then there’s nothing more at the end. I kept expecting it to burst into something beautiful and majestic like in Dead Boy’s Poem. There’s a crescendo in the instrumental and then you find it goes nowhere… Anti-climatic again.

Imaginaerum – I love the rendition of the major themes of each song, how it starts with Taikatalvi, then continues with Storytime, then Ghost river and Scaretale and the rest… It’s a gorgeous and inspiring instrumental interpretation. For most of the album I could only think of the atmosphere of a pure and epic story-like almost fairytale movie, like Edward Scissorhands for example, and this is a perfect nice remembering of the whole journey this album was.