Album review: Nightwish: Endless Forms Most Beautiful
Release Date: March 31, 2015
Full disclosure, I don’t know much about Nightwish but I do know I like the style of music and have been a casual listener for many years. Combining classical instruments and arrangements with strong guitars and drums of the metal variety, is a good sound. Paired with vocals that are worthy of the theatre stage shows, it’s even better. Apparently it has a name: symphonic metal. Ok that works just fine for me. Nightwish are one of those bands I have only researched a bit about, mostly because when I first latch onto a band and realize they are a carousel of members, I generally give up on “knowing” the band and just enjoy the music. This is another release with another singer, drummer, etc. It seems to work for them. Here is what I think of this latest release.
Shudder Before The Beautiful: A good start, it rocks and has the aforementioned strong and high vocals.
Weak Fantasy: The guitar riffage here is like a train rollin’ down the tracks, I love it! Tempo change once vocals come in, just for a tad bit then back to rollin’ rollin’ rollin’. Strong tune!
Elan: The first single, it starts out and I instantly have
memories of Titanic the movie. Yes the Celine Dion song! Have I lost credibility at this point? Just the start, if that helps my cause for context. This one shows off the grooviness of the vocals. Very musical sounding. It builds up and I like this song too!
Yours is an Empty Hope: Begins like a movie score, then it formalizes into a strong metal sound. Crunching guitars and accompaniments. Impressive! The breakdown just past the halfway point is very good. New singer Floor Jansen sounds downright angry.
Our Decades in the Sun: This one never gets going for me.
My Walden: We may be at the midsection that looses me, an ok song for me, the accompaniments are the strongest part of the song. The time change at mid song also works at getting my interest back.
Endless Forms Most Beautiful: Title track and second single, certainly gets my attention back. Stick around, the song ends strong!
Edema Ruh: Cool song, essentially it means traveling band/performers if you are wondering about the title. Love the guitar work!
Alpenglow: Another strong tune the guitar and violin string work together is awesome, as well some great backing vocal timing.
The Eyes of Sharbat Gula: Slower tempo, similar to a music score. Instrumental.
The Greatest Show On Earth: A 24 minute opus with 5 parts! Part I is the setup almost entirely instrumental portion, Part II rocks and brings in the dramatic concept, Part III slows down to animal sounds and then rocks out again, Part IV has the storyteller narration and the finale Part V has the feeling of bringing it all together. Will we see a short film about this perhaps?
Something must be in the water, or the booze, in the Scandinavian nations, between Sweden and Finland, the latter who Nightwish hail from, they sure produce solid music!
Stand out songs: Weak Fantasy / Elan / Edema Ruh / Alpenglow
Blair De Abreu
