Category: Tuomas Holopainen

November 13, 2024 2024, Nightwish, symphonic metal, Tuomas Holopainen Post a Comment

Deja Vu: Nightwish’s Yesterwynde

Although I’ve largely avoided writing reviews this year, it was difficult to keep quiet about a new Nightwish album, because obviously they are a seminal band in symphonic metal, but also because they at one point delivered a legitimate album of the year in 2011 for Imaginaerum (in my revisionist, corrected list that is). Yet as opposed to just immediately writing an album review for Yesterwynde like everyone else, I wanted to let this thing digest for a bit internally, and for the dust to settle around it’s release as well. I’ve read scattered opinions on this album, the band’s first without bassist/co-vocalist Marco Hietala since 2001’s Wishmaster (which sounds unreal but yeah, its true), and have felt that a consensus has begun to emerge that largely centers on indifference from most. Yes the Nightwish faithful are still attenuated to Tuomas Holopainen’s lyrics here in a way that few other metal bands experience, but I was admittedly a little bit surprised at just how quickly this new album was listened to, commented on, and dismissed by the symphonic and power metal communities at large.

For all the criticism 2020’s Human. :||: Nature. received, it was the subject of furious discussion for weeks on end when it was released — granted we were all of us sitting at home because of the pandemic and had nothing but time on our hands, but I remember there being real agitation and annoyance at that album’s indulgences, at its underuse of Floor Jansen’s talent, its marginalization of Marco Hietala’s vocals, and its opulent instrumental second disc that gave new meaning to the term pretentious. But in the now month and a half that’s passed since Yesterwynde’s release, I’ve not seen the same amount of discussion about it anywhere really. The posts on various metal subreddits about the album aren’t tracking in the hundreds of comments a Nightwish album usually garners, the album got a cursory discussion in the r/PowerMetal discord, and I don’t recall anyone on Facebook or Twitter or Threads discussing it at length. I’ve come to sense that maybe, and this is just my admittedly singular perspective… most of the people out there that would have had an interest in Nightwish’s work previously have little to say this time around. So why the general indifference? Why not the tidal back and forth of opinions between those who find Nightwish can’t do much wrong versus those who think Tuomas has his head up you know where?

So I think the obvious culprit would be the music itself, which I will say off the bat is certainly an improvement over Human. :||: Nature (I really resent the punctuation in that album’s title). Wisely selected singles such as “Perfume of the Timeless” and “An Ocean of Strange Islands” are indeed made of the same ingredients that formulated so much vintage Nightwish of yore, though criticisms against their mixing are hugely warranted. Floor’s vocals were intentionally mixed lower on this album as an artistic decision, for what purpose I’m not entirely sure however. If you go on YouTube and search up “Perfume of the Timeless” remixed, a fan has uploaded a version where he boosted her vocals and lo and behold, it sounds dramatically more powerful than the album version, entirely more thrilling and Nightwish-y, but I digress. The other single, “The Day Of…” is less convincing however, and the more I’ve listened to it’s clunky mess of children’s choirs (a musical element Tuomas has overused by this point) and orchestral passages where the band practically disappears, the more I’m convinced this might be the second worst Nightwish single to date. If you’re wondering, “Noise” is easily the first in that ranking… they should do everything in their power to not promote something that dastardly again.

Stepping away from the singles, I actually found that I enjoyed part of “Sway” and much of the orchestral ballad “Lanternlight”, with the former being a close cousin to the twee Rusted Root vibes of “Harvest” on the previous album. I love the first few minute and a half of “Sway” in particular, with it being one of the few examples where I really feel that Troy had to have a lead vocal part, his gentle tone a perfect match for the hushed whisper the vocal melody is delivered in. It all gets a little messy during the middle sequence where they’re talking in grandiose tones about “the big reveal”… can we get back to the ballad please? Well they never do and the song dissolves into orchestral nothingness and four minutes feels like six and this is an opportunity wasted. On “Lanternlight”, I felt we got the closest to the Nightwish of olde, with Tuomas penning a heart on sleeve, lead vocal driven ballad that Floor genuinely shines on as a singer, her best moment on these past two albums. I think it works because it is so simple, the melody is allowed to flow unobstructed by any other elements jutting in unwelcomingly. As for everything else… well, “The Children of ‘Ata” had a solid chorus, an admirable lyrical sentiment that covered an interesting historical tidbit I had remembered reading about before, but that was it for positive takeaways.

I wrote in my review for Human. :||: Nature that Tuomas was “at his best when he allows himself to write in a pop songwriter mode first and foremost, and then colors in the details with metallic elements, with film soundtrack music, and with ancillary elements like the aforementioned tribal drumming or folk music”. All the progressive rock infusions that have swirled into the mix on these last two albums are pulling him away from his strength, and I think that no one is around to tell him as much (he certainly won’t discern this himself… this is what happens when others start calling you maestro and you don’t correct them). The first Floor album, Endless Forms Most Beautiful, worked really well because he essentially wrote simple, straightforward symphonic metal songs that were built on hooks and free flowing melodies. I remember remarking that it sounded at times like a throwback to Oceanborn, with a slight power metal tinge to it, and the lyrical theme of that album was the first dip into this pool of humanism and nature. It really worked. The thing that I ultimately came away with while listening to Yesterwynde was that Endless Forms aged really well, its directness very reminiscent of the sharpness of the band that wrote Imaginaerum, and that everything since has been a chore to sit and listen thru. I do think Marco’s missing vocal presence could have gone a long way in addressing that, the idea being that his voice almost demanded something more straightforwardly metal or more meat and potatoes so to speak, and with just Floor and Troy on vocals, there is a lack of this needed driving force.

I also wonder if the overwhelming indifference I’ve detected to this albums release is also a reaction to this being the third record in a row mining this particular subject matter. I know I’ve used the Green Day analogy before, that American Idiot was a fresh concept when it came out, but that same concept felt trite and overdone when they went with it again five years later on 21st Century Breakdown. Nightwish has described this as being the third and final album in a trilogy, so the good news here is that this particular vein should be exhausted by their own admission, that we can expect something new. In the process of preparing to write about this album, I listened to the previous albums in this trilogy back to back before listening to this one, and despite the quality gap between those two albums, the thing they share in common with Yesterwynde is that some of these songs are interchangeable from album to album. Something like “Sway” or “Harvest” could’ve been on any of these three albums, same for some of the other tracks, and so it calls into question the need for a trilogy — all are “positive” in tone, which has been the key talking point in the press interviews the band has given this time around. What was so different from album to album here that necessitated three albums worth of music digging into the same of inspiration that wasn’t already said on Endless Forms?

That lingering question is ultimately what Nightwish fans should be worried about. Did Tuomas extend this theme for so long because he’s at a loss of what to do otherwise? And now that its over, where does he go from here as a songwriter for this band? The standard advice he’d likely get from most critics is to return to something more personal and cut from the same cloth the older Nightwish classics were, but is that possible? Those albums were written from starkly personal places that fans love to speculate about (I will refrain here), and he’s older and at a different phase in his life. We’ve also seen less than stellar results when some other artists have attempted such a challenge, with the results being watered down or unconvincing. Its ironic that the older, more personal songs about longing and heartbreak and inner turmoil were more universally loved and adored than these songs addressing more universal, grander themes that should be applicable to all of us. But that’s an adage that has been around in all types of media, that audiences will respond to something they can identify with. Its why people love to talk about their favorite characters in movies, and not so much their favorite thematic material. I don’t have any answers for this lingering question, but I’ll be extremely interested in how Tuomas answers it.

May 12, 2020 2020, Floor Jansen, Nightwish, symphonic metal, Tuomas Holopainen Post a Comment

Familiar Forms Most Beautiful: Nightwish’s Human. :II: Nature

George Costanza once famously said of our current season, “Spring. Rejuvenation. Rebirth. Everything’s blooming. All that crap.” Jaded cynicism aside, I think that’s how most of us view spring (well, at least it was before 2020 happened), with a notion of positivity, possibility, and general optimism. I don’t think its a coincidence that Nightwish chose to release their long awaited new album Human. :II: Nature. during these months, even when it might have been the smarter play to delay it to the fall given the state of things and the lack of ability to start touring on it right away. A spring release makes sense for this album because like its predecessor Endless Forms Most Beautiful, also a spring release way back in 2015, the artistic content here is meant to be unveiled during this time, at least for those of us in the northern hemisphere (if you’re reading this in Brazil or Argentina, just bear with me). These two albums are tied to the same season for more than just release dates however. Their collective sound is unmistakably far more bright-skied and sunnier than the Nightwish of old, a trait further reflected in their shared humanism meets environmental lyrical perspective. Nightwish’s distant past was filled with songs about loss and longing, and the dark undercurrent of isolation and depression that swirls around the yearning for childhood innocence. That was likely the Nightwish that most of their legion of fans fell in love with, or grew alongside as the band transitioned out of their very early fantasy steeped themes. The Nightwish of Century Child, Once, and Dark Passion Play then. But it seems the fall and winter of songwriter Tuomas Holopainen’s moods are long past, and with Endless Forms Most Beautiful and now Human. :II: Nature., we’re settling in for what looks to be a lengthy spring turned summer.

The question to determine here is whether this new era of Nightwish is as compelling as the Nightwish of old, given the stark differences in the very essence of the band’s music from then and now. Oh sure, it’s still symphonic metal, and it still sounds like Nightwish for the most part(ish), and of course Holopainen is still as ambitious as ever in regards to the grandeur of his scope. This is a two disc album, its second disc being a thirty-one minute long series of continuously flowing instrumental music (more on this in a bit), while the first disc is the new Nightwish album proper. My first realization after listening through it a couple times was, “Only nine new actual songs on an album coming out five years after the last one? Okay…”. Relatedly, in the gulf of time between Nightwish’s last tour and the release of this album, the phenomenon of YouTube reaction videos temporarily gripped the world in its trendy maw; and Nightwish’s version of “Ghost Love Score” from their Showtime, Storytime live album/Blu-Ray was one of those central songs that everyone simply had to make a reaction video to. Views for the Nightwish video soared into the millions for a song that was merely an old fan favorite, but now was becoming something of an outsider’s phenomenon —- and for the band, an unlikely “hit” despite being over a decade old. Out of this, Floor Jansen became a magnet for “vocal coach reacts” gushing adoration, not only from the reactors themselves but from the comments sections for those videos, and her profile has only risen thanks to her being a judge on the Dutch reality TV show Beste Zangers, even managing a number one single in that country with her take on “The Phantom of the Opera”. Indeed her rise in the public eye both as a member of Nightwish and a star in her own right mirrors Tarja Turunen. But where Nightwish really leaned into Turunen being the face of the band during the Once era until it reached its breaking point, there seems to be a deliberate move towards the opposite end of the spectrum on their part now. Case in point is that she only delivers lead vocals on seven and a half out of the eight vocal-ed up tracks here (she shares split lead vocals with Marco Hietala on the final track “Endlessness”), with the album’s second single “Harvest” being sung entirely by the band’s multi-instrumentalist Troy Donockley. Its a puzzling choice, and I wonder if other fans might not feel that she’s a little underutilized, or more speculatively, does she feel that way?

Jansen’s vocals on the songs she does sing on are firmly locked into that mix of lightly emotive fragility and full throated belting, which works for these songs, but certainly puts to bed any notion that the band would utilize her classical soprano abilities. She’s at her best on “How’s The Heart?”, a uilleann pipes accompanied slice of cheery, mid-tempo pop, a close cousin to Endless Forms’ “Alpenglow” and “My Walden”. Her emotive choices during the chorus make the song and I also enjoy Donockley’s audible harmonizing as well, their voices working well as easy on the ears contrasts. And you don’t need me to tell you that Holopainen is a talented songwriter, and he can pen memorable melodies for days and that’s certainly the case here and elsewhere. The string and piano driven “Procession” is another beautiful example, with Jansen’s hushed vocals rising and falling in a bittersweet crescendo that tugs at the heartstrings. The lyrical framework on those two songs is rather appealing as well, with Holopainen appealing to humanistic ideals of empathy and collectivism in the former and a widescreen, panoramic view of biological history as a living memory on the latter. He’s always been a talented lyricist, his clunkiness in diction and phrasing forgivable in the greater context of his thematic choices and poetic framework. Take the opening track “Music”, which is the most slow burn intro for a Nightwish album ever, featuring a three minute long passage to start with that combines tribal drumming, sounds of wild animals echoing in the distance, before culminating in a choir vocal dramatic crescendo that reaches its apex with a heavenly orchestral swell. The band and Jansen should kick into high gear at that point right? But unexpectedly, Jansen begins on a delicate, calm, almost reserved vocal melody that she gently rolls out and gradually builds into an exultant crying out in the refrain. And in fully committing to the music as a metaphor for humanity’s coexistence with nature, this is as dynamic and adventurous a song as Holopainen has penned in awhile —- a rather bold and daring way to open the album.

Often times though, that progressive songwriting mindset completely overloads some tracks to a point where melodies suffer, and as a result that expected Nightwish emotive tugging of the heartstrings never materializes. The most egregious examples are “Pan” and “Tribal”, the former of which is as aggravating a Nightwish song as I can remember, with its attempts at dynamic quiet-loud tradeoffs doing more to grate on my nerves than anything else. And while “Tribal” has some surprisingly headbanging moments in its middle passages where drummer Kai Hahto and guitarist Emppu Vuorinen crank up the intensity with a tribal drumming + aggro-riff barrage, those rhythmic moments don’t make for a memorable song, particularly when lacking a memorable melodic motif. It’s also striking just how lackluster the first single “Noise” really is in comparison to previous premiere Nightwish singles, with Holopainen’s keyboard melody being the closest thing to a hook in a song built on rhythmic, alliterative vocals during the verses. Here Jansen’s abilities in the chorus seem a little wasted, with nothing in the way of a memorable melody even offered to her —- it all results in a song that sounds a little unfocused, or rather unfinished. I felt the same way about “Shoemaker”, which has so many little interesting micro-moments but nothing that collectively ties it all together, and I’m left wondering how Holopainen’s songwriting style has changed to favor this wild, throw everything in the blender approach as opposed to how he usually writes —- with focus, honing carefully designed melodic structures and discernible song structures. If it wasn’t clear before, it should be clear now that he’s at his best when he allows himself to write in a pop songwriter mode first and foremost, and then colors in the details with metallic elements, with film soundtrack music, and with ancillary elements like the aforementioned tribal drumming or folk music.

I haven’t mentioned bassist/co-lead vocalist Marco Hietala that much here, mostly because he’s hardly given any vocal parts on this album to shine with. His lone solo vehicle is “Endlessness” where he splits time with Jansen, and it’s not a bad song by any means, but it’s long, drawn out tempo makes a potentially epic melody simply tedious. Troy Donockley fairs better in the utterly bizarre but somewhat effective “Harvest”, arguably the most controversial Nightwish single since Anette Olzon’s debut with “Eva” in 2007. Simply taken as it is, in all its jangly poppiness, it’s an effective song with a memorable hook, and a decent melodic thru-line paired with some intriguing instrumentation, but it’s all just a little twee for Nightwish isn’t it? I think more people will wonder why Jansen wasn’t given lead vocals here, and its a good question. You can hear her vocals in the harmonies layered here, and she sounds like she could have handled the job on her own, which is not to suggest that Donockley isn’t a fine singer in his own right. I just think that having him handle lead vocals results in the song coming across as more Rusted Root neo-hippie zeal than anything I’d associate with Nightwish, where we were accustomed to male vocals only in the form of the tortured anguish of Hietala’s inimitable style. And then there’s the second disc, which is actually enjoyable on its own as background music for studying, working or whatever. I’m not going to break it down as its all instrumental (aside from its voiced-over moment reading from Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot), and mostly because it’s all one homogenous whole. And besides, it’s more of a Pip Williams with his magnificent orchestra and choirs than anything Nightwish in nature. I’m sure that Holopainen wrote the backbones of melodies here and there, but Williams has been his longtime classical collaborator, and is here credited with arrangements alongside two other professional classical composers/conductors as well. There are as you’d expect, a lot of musicians who played on the instrumental works here, professionals all of them, and it certainly sounds like it. I don’t really know what else to say about this side of the album because its just so… much, and so strange at the same time. I guess its fine?

When I take a step back and consider the thematic similarity of this album to Endless Forms Most Beautiful, its clear just how much the latter is superior in every way, with it’s Oceanborn invoking blasts of keyboard driven symphonic metal married to (at the time) a new and refreshing concept. The Dawkins meets humanism of that album really worked as a singular concept, it was an album that had some rather convincingly shimmering, optimistic melodies —- but the key word there is singular. It’s kind of incredulous to consider that five years later, Holopainen stretched the concept out to encompass a sequel, albeit one that’s more bogged down by trying too hard with overly proggy song structures. I think Endless Forms worked well because at its heart it was kind of a throwback Nightwish album, coming on the heels of the wildly experimental (and I’d say successful) Imaginaerum. Its song structures —- barring the 24 minute mistake at the end —- were relatively straightforward, pop-drenched symphonic metal; and that style paired well with Holopainen’s sharp right thematic turn from childhood innocence and nostalgia to something entirely different and unexpected. It seemed like a natural place for the band to explore, given Holopainen’s publicly admitted interest in the writings of Dawkins and Sagan, but what he’s done on Human II Nature is essentially repeat himself in the most unfocused, rambling way possible. And frankly, he’s just not as good at mining this particular thematic vein for inspiration as he was at the old introspective, inner turmoil stuff. I can’t hold that against him persay, because everyone changes as they get older and maybe he just has emptied the well of everything he’s had to write about from that source, but what this new album clearly shows is that he needs to consider something else in the future for artistic inspiration. Green Day made a mistake in putting out 21st Century Breakdown, the lukewarm sequel to American Idiot that arrived five years earlier. Sure it had a few good songs, but it lacked the urgency, freshness, and creativity of its predecessor, all while trying to utilize the same thematic concept and lyrical inspiration. It feels like Nightwish made the same mistake, and time will tell if Holopainen is self-aware enough to realize that he’s not quite meant to be a spring/summer guy all the time.

April 22, 2018 2018, Black Metal, Folk Metal, Nightwish, Power Metal, reviews, symphonic metal, Tuomas Holopainen 6 Comments

The Spring 2018 Reviews Cluster

We’ve had a few really solid months in terms of quality metal output, and I’ve been somewhat on top of most things this year which is a change from my usual flailing around. I’ve likely missed something somewhere but given the amount of time already spent listening to music, I don’t think I could cram anymore in. Here’s a few of the things I thought were noteworthy and worth talking briefly about, the ones that didn’t make it in this time might see the light of day next go round. If you really think I’m missing something that needs to be heard by all means let me know in the comments below, I need all the help I can get!

 

 

 

Judicator – The Last Emperor:

Tucson’s Judicator are the latest in a volley of trad/power metal shots fired from the States, and with The Last Emperor they might actually win enough critical acclaim to become a fixture on the scene. Theirs is a decidedly European leaning take on the style, heavily influenced by classic mid-period era Blind Guardian. This shouldn’t come as a surprise once you hear this record, but its worth mentioning that their founding members met at a Blind Guardian show in 2012, and having first hand experience myself at just how magical those shows are in particular, I wonder why more power metal bands haven’t blossomed in their wake. Anyway, at the heart of Judicator are vocalist John Yelland and guitarist Tony Cordisco, both working as primary songwriters together, Cordisco working up the music and Yelland crafting his own vocal melody ideas. Their new album is actually my introduction to the band, arriving typically late to the party (this is album number four for them, three if you consider the first to be what it really is, a demo), I was introduced to them via the accumulated murmurings at the US Power Metal Connection Facebook group and the /r/powermetal subreddit. Everyone seemed to be eagerly anticipating its March 30th release above anything else, so like a kid elbowing his way through a throng watching the news on TV at a storefront window, I had to see what everyone was going on about. Two tracks in and I was immediately sold and bought the album from their Bandcamp a day before its official release.

 

It shouldn’t take long to sell you on it either, the opening title track being a near perfect microcosm of hearing their obvious influences shining through yet also detecting their own personality coming through. Midway through, they abruptly skip away from a very Blind Guardian-esque, layered vocal laden mid-tempo passage to a sudden gear shift into speed metal with group shouted backing vocals, a combination that reminds me of a metalcore approach (albeit without sounding ‘core). I imagine its impossible to write a review about these guys and not mention the influence of the ‘Bards, and while other bands have shown that influence before (Persuader anyone?), the really impressive thing about Judicator is just how that influence manifests itself —- the folky vocal passage towards the end of “Take Up Your Cross”. Yelland isn’t so much a dead ringer for Hansi in tone as he is in approach, something heard in his choice in diction, phrasing, and of course the innate sense of when to layer a vocal with heaps of harmonies. You get to directly hear that contrast on “Spiritual Treason” where Hansi himself shows up for a guest vocal spot, as ringing an endorsement of Judicator as you could envision. Its a fantastic track, epic in scope and feel, and while the two singers complement each other really well, the star here might be the songwriting itself, crisp, bracing and energetically bouncing along (its been awhile  since we’ve heard Hansi in something this lean and mean).

 

Nine Circles published a nice interview with Yelland and Cordisco, one worth checking out if only for the glimpse into the tons of behind the scenes work that American power metal bands have to go through. The insight into this album however yielded a few surprising details, the first being that this is the band’s first album without harsh vocals and ballads both. There are softer dips into folky acoustic territory scattered throughout The Last Emperor, and they sounded so excellent that I wondered why these guys weren’t trying their hand at a longer piece composed in that vein —- I’ll have to dig into their discography to find that then. Its not a knock against this album though, because I get what they were trying to do in maintaining a certain level of energy throughout (somewhat similar to what Visigoth recently accomplished on Conqueror’s Oath). Reading Cordisco’s description of how he approached the songwriting here only reinforces what I felt when hearing the album for the first time, that there’s a real methodical level of thought that went into the songwriting here, even down to tiny details like sudden riff progression changes and the design of hooks (vocal and musical both). This was a real surprise, a knockout album from a band that wasn’t even on my radar until recently. It gives me hope for the future of power metal which seems to be flourishing into a new renaissance recently with the likes of Visigoth, Triosphere, and Unleash the Archers.

 

 

 

Barren Earth – A Complex of Cages:

I’ve had a soft spot for Finland’s Barren Earth ever since being introduced to the project with their 2012 album The Devil’s Resolve (a Metal Pigeon Top Ten that year!), it being an intriguing mix of melancholic melo-death with very 70s prog-rock elements. At the time, Opeth had just undergone their neo-prog transition with the Heritage album and I wasn’t feeling it, so I was all to eager to fly the flag for Barren Earth pulling off the sound I wanted Opeth to be doing. But that’s an oversimplification of what they do, even if the comparison is completely justifiable, and as we heard on 2015’s On Lonely Towers they were forging a unique identity of their own. And that’s important because one of the things that always gets everyone’s attention about the band’s lineup is its supergroup of Finnish metal aura (two parts Moonsorrow, former ex and now current Amorphis, and the Finnish guitarist for Kreator). Since I missed out on reviewing On Lonely Towers, its worth pointing out here that it was their first without Swallow the Sun vocalist Mikko Kotamäki at the helm, and to his credit he was a big part of what made me love their previous album so much. His replacement is Clouds vocalist Jón Aldará, a vocalist whose clean vocals are a little more rich with emotive phrasing, not a bad thing by any means but one of the things I loved about Kotamäki’s cleans is his somewhat emotionally detached, distant approach. It lent an air of mystery to his performances with Barren Earth, whereas Aldará (damn these guys’ accented names!) puts almost the equal and opposite emphasis into emoting, something that tends to diminish its own power if done too often.

 

As far as melo-death vox go however, Aldará is on par with his predecessor, his tone having the right texture (somewhat blackened, nice crunch… what a weird way to describe the human voice). On “Further Down” you get a good balance of both his styles, and its a catchy track too, with a chorus boasting a memorable vocal hook and a nicely written major key guitar sequence that sets everything up. It was the major standout after my first couple listens to the album, and unfortunately, that’s kind of the problem with A Complex of Cages in the grand scheme of things. After a few weeks listening through it, giving it space, coming back to see if anything else would unlock, I’m realizing that its one of those albums that just isn’t sticking. Its a solid album when I’m actively listening to it, but apart from that one track I’m finding it difficult to have anything else stay with me long after I’m done. Now sometimes that’s fine, as was the case with Bell Witch’s Mirror Reaper, but those are outliers, and I remember how much The Devil’s Resolve would linger long after listening to it. Oddly enough the only other track that came close to having some kind of return value was the ten minute epic, “Solitude Pith” for its fantastic ending passage at the 7:40 minute mark. These are the reviews I hate to write the most, because the album’s not bad by any means, and its got interesting moments scattered throughout, but ultimately I feel like I’ve given it a fair amount of time and its failed to make a lasting impression. I’m going to revisit it in a few months and see how it goes.

 

 

 

 

Light The Torch – Revival:

I don’t normally listen to bands like these, but lately I’ve become a supporter of Howard Jones just as a human being, his appearances on the Jasta Podcast being so endearing that I’ve found myself rooting for him. His is an interesting story, not just for his time in Killswitch Engage’s rise to fame but in his battling depression, the brutal physical effects of diabetes type II, as well as crippling social anxiety. His current band has been known as the Devil You Know, but legal problems with their former drummer prompted a name change as an easy out, and so we have Revival, the first album in this mach 2.0 version of the band. The style here is more modern hard rock than metalcore, but sees a meshing of various elements largely due to Jones’ expressive and distinct clean vocals. Curiosity made me start listening to this album, and I started using it as a palette cleanser after so much more involved and complicated music I’ve been constantly listening to (Nightwish comp aside, the rest of the albums in this post are proof of that). Its definitely a simpler brand of heavy music at its fundamental core, focusing on anthemic choruses and vocal melody centered songwriting.

 

The riffs are fairly standard, not a lot of texture to them and sometimes that’s a keen reminder as to why I don’t normally bother too much with this genre of music as a whole, an example being “The God I Deserve”, with its turgid, bland slabs of distortion not really saying much besides filling in the vocal gaps. But lets not get ahead of ourselves here with too much musically focused analysis, because I doubt the people who really love stuff like this are fawning over the guitarists in particular. The attraction here is Jones himself, and on the opener and video track “Die Alone” which boasts about as positive sounding and anthemic (any good synonyms to replace that adjective with?) a slice of groove metal can be, they lean on their greatest strength. Its an addictive hook, and Jones has something inherently likable about his clean vocal approach, capable of being booming and rich at the same time, never losing an ounce of power. His growls are fine, and they add shades of color and complexity that’s badly needed in the face of the straightforward attack of the band, but if he did more of this kind of harmonized type clean singing in Killswitch, I might’ve been more of a fan. He showcases this again on “The Safety of Disbelief”, a strong bit of songwriting with some rather well executed self-reflecting lyrics. The themes here are a more personal slant on what Hatebreed does, a lot of purging of inner turmoil and self doubt, and it works. Not my usual cup of tea but it was a nice change of pace.

 

 

 

 

Nightwish – Decades:

I’m not sure if the more apt critique of Nightwish’s new career spanning retrospective is its utterly bizarre tracklisting, or once again my pointing out just how inane it is for a band to spend money making these compilations in the first place. Granted, the costs of such a project are lower than that of a studio album for the most part —- we’re talking primarily the costs of design packaging here, and presumably Nightwish had already made the arrangements long ago to be allowed to re-release parts of their Spinefarm past back catalog on a newer label arrangement. Whatever the business arrangements, Nightwish made the shrewd decision to promote the hell out of the fact that this was a band curated release, with the tracklisting picked out by Tuomas Holopainen himself and the liner notes as detailed and fan pleasing as you could imagine. So pleased and confident were they that they gave away copies to every single ticket buyer of their recent US tour, a nice little tie-in with the tour bearing the same name. I did scan their social media a bit to see fan responses to the free surprise gift vary from giddy to pleasantly surprised to “This is nice but I don’t own a disc player…”. Well then, the very fundamental issue indeed.

 

I’ll wonder aloud and ask you to join me, “Couldn’t this have been accomplished by simply having the band curate their own Spotify playlist, perhaps with some audio commentary tracks thrown in as a nice bonus? Oh wait, they did that —- Spotify has done a series called “Metal Talks” in which artists do that very thing for their newest release and Nightwish recorded one with Tuomas and Troy Donockley, and I found their commentary incredibly fascinating, Tuomas in particular going into details that few interviews manage to drag out of him. If you consider that Decades release on Spotify itself is in fact a glorified playlist, then its mission accomplished without the need for a physical release of any kind, but Decades was released on CD and vinyl. I don’t have a problem with that, I just hope it was worth it and that they won’t take a bath on it financially. I’ve written about my own internal first world struggle with my physical music collection, and the in past few months we’ve seen new reports about how Best Buy and Target might remove CDs from their stores by the summer (and articles reporting that vinyl and cd sales are beating digital downloads for the first time in years). I guess I admire the spirit behind a physical release like this, but am torn on the question of its necessity (though clearly others would disagree still), a debate largely informed by my own ongoing conflicted feelings regarding physical media.

 

Anyway, lets talk songs, because for die-hard fans I can easily imagine Decades being a flawed tracklisting, and its not well chosen for newcomers as well. I know Tuomas calls “The Greatest Show on Earth” his best work ever, that 24 minute long monolith that closed out their last album and is his Richard Dawkins narrated dream come true. To me and many others, it was the first one of his epics that didn’t seem quite gelled together, suffering from severe bloat in many passages and not enough in the way of strong motifs to keep me coming back (the spoken word was a chore as well). I’d actually argue that “Song of Myself” or or especially “Meadows of Heaven” were more apt choices as far as modern epics go, both hitting a particular core facet of Nightwish mythology in a more compact, memorable way. The tracklisting is in reverse chronological order, and as we travel through the recent albums, I wonder about the “Amaranthe” inclusion (surely one of the weaker songs of Dark Passion Play), and the lack of “The Crow, the Owl and the Dove” (some of Tuomas’ finest lyrics). The other chief glaring omission is “Everdream”, one of the band’s most beloved and iconic Tarja era gems, a song as central to Nightwish fans as “Nemo” or “Ghost Love Score” (both rightfully represented here). Only two songs from Century Child seems a bit strange, and I guess everyone could nitpick on what older songs should have made the cut but the ones they picked seem fine to me. Its just an unsatisfying overview in general however. I honestly wouldn’t recommend it to anyone in lieu of just directing them to a single studio album alone. It worked for the rest of us, it’ll work for them.

 

 

 

 

Primordial – Exile Amongst The Ruins:

I’ve had a meandering relationship with this band, really liking them upon my first introduction with the ever more incredible The Gathering Wilderness, their classic 2005 Celtic folk metal masterpiece. That enthusiasm ebbed and flowed over the years with their subsequent albums until 2014’s Where Greater Men Have Fallen, an album that saw them up the aggression level just enough to shake up their sound. A friend of mine who also likes them recently observed that he would forget about Primordial for years until the next album came around, where he’d pay attention to it, until he’d likely forget about it once again. It didn’t mean he didn’t enjoy those albums, but that for some undefinable reason, Primordial couldn’t stick with him the way other bands did. I think I’m in the same boat, because even though ‘Greater Men’ was a Metal Pigeon Top Ten Album in 2014, I haven’t really gone back and given it a proper listen through until now when prepping for this review. I’m coming into Exile Amongst The Ruins with that in the back of my mind, maybe even allowing it to amplify my expectations for an album in an unfair way by raising the bar too high. If the last album was a top ten list maker yet not something I’ve revisited out of pure enjoyment, then this one has to be something truly special right?

 

Well yes and no, because I certainly know that I’ll be adding a few gems from this one to my iPod (lately I’ve cobbled together my own ‘best of’ Primordial playlist in hopes of keeping the flame burning so to speak). The first one being “To Hell or the Hangman” which is a tightly wound ball of energy on a vibrating string of a guitar figure, propelled forward like a bullet train. Alan Averill’s ever wild, unrestrained vocals here are delivered like he’s standing on a rocky Irish cliff side, arms wide open while singing into gale force winds. Its the very definition of a kinetic song, and a vivid portrait of Primordial at their best, especially in the way it evokes that Celtic spirit without actually resorting to cultural cliches (ie a lot of bagpipes, fiddles, and over the top Celtic melodies). Then there’s “Stolen Years”, where a deceptively laid back succession of floating, lazy guitar chords create a hazy atmosphere, broken through by an overlaid guitar figure a few notes higher. At the 2:45 mark the build up unfurls into a slow motion crashing wave, all the emotional weight behind the guitar melodies only furthered by Averill’s incredibly moving vocal. There are other good moments scattered throughout, but there’s also a lot of times where you’re waiting for something to happen, to materialize into a memorable passage (this band doesn’t really do hooks) or instrumental sequence and it just never gets there. They don’t entirely derail what is a relatively good album, loose and lively in a way they haven’t been in years, but it also results in a feeling that everything is a little too unfocused.

 

 

 

 

Oceans of Slumber – The Banished Heart:

This is about a month late, but I thought since they’re fellow Houstonians and perhaps the biggest metal export from our city to date I’d give The Banished Heart an extended period of listening time. I’m glad I did because the first thing I heard from the album was the album opener and first single/video “The Decay of Disregard” and it just wasn’t working for me for whatever reason. To be honest, it still is one of the weaker tracks here and certainly a puzzling choice for the album opener, the slow, sludgy parts in the middle a little too meandering for my tastes. On the flip side, their choice for the title track as the second video release was spot on, despite its nine minute plus running time. This is Oceans of Slumber at their best, Cammie Gilbert pushing her vocals to their utmost emotional wrangling effectiveness, the usage of delicate, sad, and downright haunting piano courtesy of drummer Dobber Beverly in the middle passage reinforces the gravity of Gilbert’s heartbroken lyrics. At the 5:10 mark, he plays a figure that is pure Blackwater Park era Opeth in spirit, a beautiful melody awash in nostalgia and regret, and I find that I’m realizing he’s as much a talent on piano as he is with his always interesting percussion patterns. The song opens ups after that with the introduction of synth driven strings and an inspired bit of heavenly choral vocal effects helping to propel what is Gilbert’s watershed vocal performance. This was the first Oceans of Slumber tune I really could say I loved, even considering everything from Winter, and they even nailed the video for it, its visual aesthetic nicely understated, Texan in setting (those endless fields!), and darkly dramatic when it had to be.

 

On the heavier end of the spectrum, there’s a highlight in “A Path to Broken Stars” with its triplet infused riffs and intense sense of urgency. Gilbert has gotten better at learning how to develop her vocal patterns to mesh better with the heavier aspect of the bands’ sound, something that Winter needed. Here she doesn’t try to match the riffs rhythmically, being content to sing in a higher register at an entirely slower tempo, an old symphonic metal trick but it works for a reason. This is also a different shade of her vocal ability, something that could be classified as a little more ethereal, and it really works for her. What you don’t get so much throughout the album are her more bluesy inflected vocal stylings, but I think the songwriting helped to dictate the direction on that, and perhaps she and the band have simply grown into a new sound. Not everything is perfect here, there’s some songs that could use a little trimming, some where they don’t make enough use of a particularly impactful riff (thinking specifically of “Fleeting Vigilance”, and I wasn’t particularly taken with the closing cover tune “The Wayfaring Stranger”. I’ve heard countless versions of it before, its a pretty common folk song (Cash did it), but the digital effects and the telephone vocals here seems like distractions from what could’ve been a really fine recording. Oh well, the band’s gelled more and gotten better and they’re on the right track, that’s a good path to be on.

 

 

 

 

Panopticon – The Scars of Man on the Once Nameless Wilderness I and II:

Quietly in the middle of March, a new double album was released by Panopticon, better described as a project rather than a band given its solitary member, one Austin Lunn. Sort of like a Kentuckian equivalent to Vintersorg, I’ve been an admirer of his albums for awhile now, particularly 2015’s Autumn Eternal and the groundbreaking 2012 release Kentucky. If you’re not familiar, in a nutshell Lunn fuses Appalachia folk/bluegrass with blistering, second wave inspired Norwegian black metal. Now in truth, sometimes these aren’t pure fusions as they are juxtaposing individual tracks featuring each alongside the other, but its been interesting to see him continually strive throughout his discography to actually musical infuse his black metal strains with overtones of American folk. He might have finally nailed it though, because in the week I’ve been listening to this album, I’ve never been as captivated, intrigued, and flat out entranced by Panopticon as I am here. This album blindsided the heck out of me too, not even realizing it was released until I saw an update by the folks at No Clean Singing mentioning how Lunn wasn’t making it available ahead of time for reviewing purposes (the reason being that Autumn Eternal was leaked beforehand in a severely degraded quality and that rightfully pissed him off —- no problem with me by the way though, I rarely if ever get reviews up before an album has been released).

 

The consequence of such an odd album release approach is that this one is flying under a few radars, but I expect that will change as the mid-year best of lists some places publish get posted, in addition to old fashioned word of mouth. The instrumental folk intro of “Watch the Lights Fade” is a perfect mood setter, but in the blistering fury of “En Hvit Ravns Død” we get our first glimpse of how he’s integrating the two worlds of his soundscapes. The middle interlude of sad, discordant country violins and the sounds of forest creatures create a rustic ambiance throughout, and on “Blåtimen” and “Sheep in Wolves Clothing” Lunn uses overlaid lead guitar to create folky countermelodies set against the piles of tremolo riffs burning underneath. What he really excels at is using understated, minor key American folk as the tapestry for all the connective bits where the black metal is held at bay, and stepping back from this album in particular I’ve started to realize that it represents the very heart of his sound. The black metal ebbs and flows, and on disc two here it goes away completely. Its not meant to be the center of attention anymore like it once was, and I get the feeling that this is the kind of album that Lunn has been striving towards all this time. The rustic folk/alt-country of the second disc is gonna be an acquired taste for some, but I really enjoy it personally; it reminds me of Uncle Tupelo both in its lyrical perspective of down and out rural America but also in its lo-fi production wash. This is an album you owe it to yourselves to experience personally, too much for a simple review like this to convey. A magnum opus.

 

February 24, 2015 2015, Black Metal, Death Metal, Ensiferum, Nightwish, podcasts, Power Metal, Tuomas Holopainen 7 Comments

Reviews Cluster! Ensiferum, Napalm Death, Marilyn Manson and more!

Back with more reviews of early 2015 releases! It wasn’t just all power metal so far in 2015, as the following reviews for Napalm Death, Marduk and even Ensiferum will attest to. There’s more reviews on the way too, including one for the just released Scorpions album Return to Forever (remember when they were gonna retire?), as well as the upcoming Steven Wilson solo album Hand. Cannot. Erase., expect those soon as well as some other non-reviews features!

 

Ensiferum – One Man Army: First a mild rant: There was a time around the late 90s and early to mid 2000s when folk metal wasn’t an overcrowded subgenre, when the balance between folk and metal was handled deftly by a small cadre of accomplished bands, and when their lyrical subject matter had depth and richness. I’m thinking of those heady times when folk metal meant Skyclad, Amorphis, Subway to Sally, Otyg/Vintersorg, Falkenbach, among a few others. It was a subgenre that was creating vital, shimmering music that was stretching the boundaries of what metal could sound like —- it was fresh and exciting, the sound of things you didn’t know you always wanted to hear. Ensiferum’s first two albums were part of this wonderful era, being near-perfect marriages of thrashy guitars, power metal songwriting, and folky instrumentation.

Sometime around the mid 2000s, folk metal lost its way. I’ll point the finger for the catalyzing moment being Finntroll’s “Trollhammaren” music video in 2004 from the otherwise excellent Nattfodd album. That single/video got a lot of attention and its upbeat, Finnish polka (humppa) laden sound seemed to break down barriers for major metal magazines to begin covering the subgenre. Labels noticed, and a horde of bands followed through, with increasingly upbeat takes on the style, boasting more and more outlandish band “concepts” until we finally arrived at the current hokey state of folk metal with the likes of Alestorm, Trollfest, and the dreadful Korpiklaani. Folk metal today is largely associated with songs about ale, beer, rum, partying, and what have you —- I realize that I’m oversimplifying and that there are some artists out there who are still doing great, inspired folk metal. But at least in my eyes, the genre took a walk down a sad, sad road.

Some years ago, Finntroll seemed to publicly demonstrate some semblance of shame for their role in this sordid mess, and released the very black metal Ur Jordens Djup, and supported it with a tour consisting of utterly brutal live performances. But I suppose fans of the new model of folk metal were too numerous to ignore, because when I saw Finntroll last in 2014, the band came on stage with every member sporting plastic elven ears. They humppa-ed it up that night. Gone was the ferocity experienced during the Ur Jordens Djup tour, instead the band kept things tame for their enthusiastic crowd which seemed to largely consist of people who would otherwise never set foot into a metal show. Clearly myself and a few other disoriented looking metal fans were the odd men out in this situation. I walked away more than a little disappointed.

Ensiferum have managed to keep out this proverbial quagmire by releasing a string of albums that are in keeping with the thematic tone of their first two classics, while simultaneously damaging their image by associating with those aforementioned bands who contributed to folk metal’s current state. Just this past week, Ensiferum announced a North American headlining tour with support coming from Korpiklaani and Trollfest. How wonderful. I could dream up a handful of better touring packages than that in my sleep. I remember catching Ensiferum headlining Paganfest in 2007 with support coming from Turisas, Tyr, and Eluveitie —- now I suppose a lot of blame could be placed upon Turisas for coming up with the ludicrous “battle metal” tag, but they’re generally a decent band that has delivered good to great albums —- point is, that was a fantastic bill.

The band’s choices are unfortunate considering that One Man Army is the closest they’ve come to replicating the magic of their early, Jari Maenpaa-led era. The title track for starters is one of the most fierce, unrelentingly brutal, thrash metal assault-on-your-senses that they’ve ever unleashed. Throughout the album in fact, Ensiferum seem to have consciously redressed the balance between their thrash/power metal foundation and their folk influenced melodicism. On “Two of Spades”, the song kicks off with a Megadeth-ian intro and riff progression, and Petri Lindroos’ vocal is almost Dave Mustaine-ian in its subtle snark, heard underneath his ferocious, rapid-fire roars. The thrash metal bookends an upbeat folk-metal bridge, the closest the band ventures to the party-metal territory of some of their peers. Its sandwiching in between slabs of thrash is what is welcome here, it stands out because its not overdone —- there’s room for moments like these, just sparingly. Another favorite of mine is “My Ancestor’s Blood”, a seriously groovy epic with dual clean and grim vocal layering (that chorus is magnificent!), while Lindroos and fellow guitarist Markus Toivonen conjure up some rather beautiful intermingling melodies.

The band’s primary songwriter, Toivonen seems to be feeling particularly inspired throughout the album, there’s not a half-baked tune to be found, and he even nails the ten minute plus epic “Descendants, Defiance, Domination”. I love its vaguely spaghetti-western sounding intro, and its gradual build up to Toivonen’s rather excellent mid-song clean vocals that duel with Lindroos’ grim counterpoint. I really love his solo vocal from the 8:06 minute mark, there’s something very fresh going on there though I can’t quite put my finger on it. Towards the end of the song, tin-whistle type instrumentation lends a touch of vibrant originality to the orchestral grandeur that unfolds. The keyboard work of Emmi Silvennoinen is instrumental in this, her additions more integral to the cohesion of the music than ever before —- no longer just relegated to window dressing. Something clicked within the band this go around, and its a welcome relief after hearing just how tired they sounded on Unsung Heroes. If only they could get a better booking agent.

 

 

Marilyn Manson – The Pale Emperor: A week or so ago when recording MSRcast #165, our guest Dave mentioned just how surprised he was with the new Marilyn Manson album. It reminded me that I had recently read a story on some fancy non-metal music site about the raves and critical plaudits Manson’s new album was drawing. I had filed it away as something I’d perhaps get around to checking out on Spotify one dull afternoon, but Dave’s enthusiastic praise was enough to get me to include it as an item worth reviewing for the blog. I was never a Marilyn Manson fan in the slightest, even during his late 90s heyday. I thought he was all flash and no substance, and considered the music I’d heard from him as lightweight both sonically and artistically. I remember vividly ignoring a friends suggestion to pick up Mechanical Animals in a Best Buy cd section (remember those?!), choosing instead to get a replacement copy of So Far! So Good! So What!.  In fact, he ended up buying the album and we listened to it on the way home, and that marked the last time I listened to a Marilyn Manson album from start to finish, until now…

I can see why its getting the amount of high praise being thrown its way —- for a Manson album, this is exceptionally catchy in a way I’ve never heard his stuff before. Gone is any semblance of hard rock or metal, in favor of an industrial tinged dancy, swingy, loose rock n’ roll amalgam, like INXS remixed by Trent Reznor. Its an interesting listen, and I can easily see this album being licensed by Hollywood and TV studios out the wazzoo, probably in a crime series like CSI, The Blacklist or something of that ilk. The strutting, clawing “Deep Six” is the closest thing to heavy you’ll get here, with a chorus built on atonal guitar screeching and some semblance of riffing —- its not bad. Nor is “The Devil Beneath My Feet”, with its new wave guitar motifs and sly, image conjuring lyrics in the refrain “…when I wake up you best be gone / Or you better be dead”.

But for as good as it all sounds, I’m not sure Manson’s music is for me… I feel no reason to be compelled to return, there’s a lack of any emotional connection to what I’m hearing. That isn’t to say that everything I listen to connects with me emotionally, that’s not the case at all. I do however need to feel something; whether its a surge of adrenaline, or an appreciation of skill or artistry, or the simple quality of feeling like I’m being entertained. It could be his voice that’s doing it, a little goes a long way due to his relatively monotonous and non melodic tone (Its the same reason I think Tom Waits songs are better when performed by someone else). I dunno, I’m missing something here, but good for Manson —- he’s an interesting personality to have around and its nice to not see him fade away.

 

 

Napalm Death – Apex Predator – Easy Meat: I guess I never had planned on ever writing about Napalm Death on this blog, not because I don’t enjoy them —- I do, but because I figured that there wasn’t much to elaborate on. Napalm Death will always sound like Napalm Death to me. I grew up listening to them, first being introduced to their grindcore/metal blend via dubbed cassette tapes by various heavy music loving friends back in middle school. They were one of those bridge bands to extreme metal, alongside Morbid Angel and Death and Carcass. More than those bands, Napalm Death delivered the kind of sheer caterwauling noise that a young budding metal fan gravitated towards because it simply sounded like something that was made for you and all the reasons you enjoyed having your parents lament your taste in music. I enjoyed playing them in my battered, sticker covered boom box in my bedroom, imagining that even with my door closed, it still sounded like hell on the other side. Maybe its fair to say that I never developed much of an emotional attachment to their music, but I don’t think it was ever designed that way.

I’ve listened to Apex Predator – Easy Meat a handful of times now (like most of their albums, its easy on the running time), and the one thing that leaps out at me is that I can’t recall this band ever sounding this crisp, clear, and catchy. Take “How The Years Condemn”, where the percussion and harmonized guitars on the outro of the chorus actually sound, dare I suggest, melo-death-ish? Barney Greenway is as muzzled, and spittle-flyingly menacing as always, but he seems to be developing into a more appealing vocalist the older he gets. He has moments throughout this album where he approaches something resembling melody, and for a band that defined grindcore, that’s something new worth mentioning. The musical approach over all just seems, well, more musical for lack of a better term —- it could be the ultra-clear mix, but the band’s sound seems expansive here, reaching for new palettes even. Not just bedroom noise anymore I suppose.

 

 

Marduk – Frontschwein:

By the time I had mentioned Marduk’s new album on the last MSRcast, I had only been able to listen to a fairly crappy quality stream once through. It sounded to me like typical Marduk, very consistent and largely good. Now having had a decent amount of time with the album in its proper form, I’m far more impressed with it. I didn’t pay much attention to Serpent Sermon (which I’ve been told I need to) so its difficult for me to throw out relative comparisons, but on its own Frontschwein is a rollicking affair —- black metal that is loaded with memorable riffs that are played midway between loose black n’roll and tight, tremolo black metal 101. Morgan Hakansson is one of the more underrated guitarists in the subgenre, his approach workmanlike in the best possible sense —- you never feel that his riffs are aimless or just filling out sound, they’re always the heart of these songs. On “Between the Wolf-Packs”, his repeated riff-motif is so catchy it almost detracts from everything else.

Vocalist Mortuus is as grim and fiery as ever, his particular tone a perfect complement to Hakansson. He even surprises on a song like “503”, approximating something resembling clean singing at certain spots, and on “Thousand-Fold Death” he spits out his grim, blackened vocals in such rabid, maniacally fast speeds that you think he’s on the verge of chewing his own tongue. I had also mentioned on the podcast my slight reservations regarding the album’s Nazi Germany iron cross sporting logo and just the war themed lyrics in general —- not that I was accusing the band of anything nefarious, but that they should be careful with iconography like that (and concepts like this as well). I’ve scanned through the lyrics, and they read like a black metal version of Sabaton, tales of battlefields and war torn mountains. Okay, so perhaps my concern was presumptive, especially considering that I am a Sabaton fan —- but this was a band that released an album called Panzer Division Marduk, which if you remember raised a ton of noise around its released about being sympathetic to NSBM beliefs. The band refuted it of course, but to once again draw from the same proverbial well for another album title/concept means that you get the scrutiny that comes with it.

 

 

Nightwish – Elan (EP):

The first shot fired from the anticipation cannon that is Nightwish’s upcoming Endless Forms Most Beautiful album is as you’d expect, a clearly accessible pop-rock number with a smooth chorus and charming melody. Sometimes I wish they’d release something daring for their first singles, but considering this is the band that topped pop charts with “Nemo”, I suppose they know what they’re doing. Don’t get me wrong, I quite enjoy “Elan” as a song, but it reminds me of “Amaranthe” in the sense that it will likely wind up as my least favored track on the album. That was not the case with Imaginaerum’s “Storytime”, which I still feel to this day is an adrenaline surging, rollercoaster of a single, it just has a propulsive feel that never lets up. What “Elan” and “Amaranthe” have in common is that steady backbeat, mid-tempo, standard (in Nightwish terms) buildup to the very hooky chorus, and that’s okay, but after such a diverse album like Imaginaerum it feels like a bit of a letdown. All that being said, Floor Jansen sounds great as expected, more Anette Olzon here than Tarja for comparison’s sake, and I really love her vocal extenuation at the 3:56 mark —- more of that on the album I hope.

The other new song on offer here (the other cuts making up the EP are a radio edit and alternative version of “Elan”, the latter of which basically amounts to an unmixed demo) is “Sagan”, referring to the famous scientist himself, as I hear his name in the song a few times. This might be a better representation of what to expect from the album, despite being a b-side, simply because Jansen gets to stretch her talents a bit more here. She’s unleashes some nimble vocal dexterity during the chorus where the phrasing gets particularly dense. The song has a nice melody, a decent hook and some interesting proggy keyboard noodling courtesy of Tuomas Holopainen that you don’t hear that much anymore in modern Nightwish. New guy Troy Donockley is a major player on both of these songs, his uilleann pipes chiming in all over the place. They sound great, but I do wonder if we’ll reach a point on the album where everything might sound the same due to their presence. I love them as an instrument, but they do impart a tone that inherently light and bouncy… will he be kept off songs that don’t need him or will he be shoehorned in? I’ll be paying close attention when the album drops.

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