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Post by tosca on Jun 15, 2007 14:56:24 GMT
Yes, of course except Mab. But in the regions of music, she pwns all. LOL, yes you can say potent, if you're meaning powerful etc. Her voice was so strange it was sort of otherworldly - and as we all know they're not gonna find someone like that again, it seems they figured their best bet was to stick to tender and sweet. You're right, it doesn't really fit with my idea of NW's music either, and too bad the majority of other female metal singers have similar sounding voices.
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Post by himiko on Jun 15, 2007 20:59:27 GMT
Hmmm, yes, I agree with crysta, I don't think it would be too hard to find an operatic style singer (possibly harder to find one who is good enough and willing to sing in a metal band, but there ye go)- Simone, Floor, Ann Louice, even Liv Kristine can make her usually rather ethereal voice sound rather operatic. But they are in a minority in metal. It's a nice voice, but rather pop/rock-ish, rather than bombastic or dramatic, which to me is a shame/
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Post by himiko on Jan 3, 2008 2:00:08 GMT
Right, OK, so Dark Passion Play is now out, officially, legally and all kinds of fun things, so let's share our opinions, shall we?
Overall, this isn't one of my favourite albums from Nightwish. Several reasons for this- I thought it was very similar to Once (another not-so-favourite of mine) in style, I'm not very keen on Anette's voice, and there are a few songs on it I downright loathe. HOWEVER, I must emphasise here that "not-so-good" as far as a Nightwish album goes can still be the kind of quality that other bands can only dream about. DPP, for the most part, fits into this category. The orchestration is thoroughly massive, there are some brilliant musical moments, and, setting aside the music for a moment, the artwork in the booklet, cover aside, is to die for, hence why I now have the 2008 calendar hanging on my wall, showing said pictures in all their glory.
Because I'm sitting here with nothing else to do, and because I can, I shall now entertain you with a song-by-song review.
1) Poet and the Pendulum- quite possibly the highlight of the entire album, almost a shame that it's out of the way at the beginning of the album. The chorus is epic, but catchy, and the orchestra on it is just *drools*. The best moment for me are the instrumental bits of "Home", when the orchestra first hits you, then the part from 7:10-8:00- pure musical orgasm. That said, it's not without it's faults- the "slower" parts (Pacific, and Mother and Father), whilst lovely, seem forced into the song a bit awkwardly- it doesn't seem to flow in quite the way that Ghost Love Score did. I'm also not a fan of Marco's shrieks- his normal voice, lovely, his shrieks, not so much. But then, I guess it would be silly to get a guest screamer just for those two verses. It works well enough in the song. The only other fault is that it is perhaps too reliant on the orchestra- sometimes it feels like "The London Session Orchestra ft. Nightwish", LOL. Still, this aside, a truly excellent song.
2) Bye Bye Beautiful- Lyrically, I'm not keen- don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Tuomas writing songs about real experience, but this + Master Passion Greed + the open letter etc. is beginning to feel like he's laying the whole "bad nasty villains" thing on with a trowel. MUSICALLY, however, it is very enjoyable- comparable to Once's Wish I Had An Angel in many ways, it's a catchy song (one of the album's singles, in fact), with the "techno"ish sound of the aforementioned song, but still almost epic sounding in parts. As I feel music is more important than lyrics, this makes up for the lyrical letdown. But again, Marco's yelling can grate on the nerves after a while. Nothing really to say about Anette's vocal performance in this song, she's solid enough, but I'd say this is predominantly Marco's song.
3) Amaranth- Another single- the first "real" single, not counting Eva, from the album. One of the few songs on the album where Marco isn't present, this song rests on Anette's vocals a lot more than the previous two. In some ways, she pulls it off- she has a very happy, poppish sounding voice that works well with this song for the most part, however, when she hits the high notes in the background of the last chorus, it sounds rather screamy, and spoils it a bit for me. Also, and this probably isn't her fault, but the amount of emphasis placed on parts of the chorus "The never FADing RAIN in your heart... hiding amaRANTH in a LAND...." bugs me a little, though this is more apparent on live videos than it is here. Musically, it's not so bad, though I feel it can get rather boring after too many listens, much like Nemo from the previous album. The orchestral version of this song, however, is very pretty, get hold of it if you can.
4) Cadence of Her Last Breath- I have hated this song since I first heard it, and this hasn't changed. The chorus annoys me, Marco's rapping thing annoys me, and the whole thing put together just really irks me for some reason. Except for the title, which I rather like. I don't know quite what it is, something about it just feels off to me. It has a slight Evanescence-y vibe in parts (or rather Evanescence-if-they-were-decent-y vibes), and TBH, I don't really like it.
5) Master Passion Greed- Hmmmm. I really don't know what to think of this song. Again, lyrically, I'm not so keen. Vocally, it's all down to Marco here, and musically it's probably the heaviest song on the album. However, something about the music itself fails to satify. The choruses, with the choir joining in, give it a very epic feel, though they merely repeat "Master Passion Greed" several times, but for me, it doesn't pick up until the second half, and even then, it's not one of the album's strongest tracks.
6) Eva- This was the song that Nightwish chose to introduce their new voice to the world. I personally don't think it was the wisest choice they could have made since it has to be one of the most boring songs of their career. Lyrically, it's about a little girl who's bullied at school. All well and good, but the song itself is eminently skippable. As a ballad, it doesn't compare to earlier masterpieces like Sleeping Sun, and though the orchestra in the last chorus is pleasant enough, it doesn't add enough interest to the song for me. But, on the positive side, Anette's sweet voice works well for this ballad, and it's probably one of her best vocal performances on the album, if not the best.
7) Sahara- I heard the earlier promo versions of the songs, and whilst most of them don't seem any different on the album, bar the lack of the irritating voiceovers, but Sahara seems to sound so much better in comparison, for whatever reason. It's the album's "Eastern" style song- cue cheesy lyrics about pharoahs and 1001 nights, and chanting by Anette- and whilst it's a lot of fun, I wouldn't say it's one of the standout songs on the album for me. The intro seems a bit overlong, and like Amaranth, most of the song gets boring upon multiple listens. I don't like Anette's voice in the chorus (the music suddenly soars, and Anette's voice seems a little flat, and seems to drag it down), but sound good on the aformentioned chanting.
8) Whoever Brings the Night- Like MPG, I'm in two minds about this song. The chorus, in many ways, sounds an utter mess. Irritating music, with Anette shouting over the top with some wierd effect on her voice. I like the rest of the song, however, especially after the second chorus with the choir chanting. It's Emppu's only solo composition (aside from the lyrics, apparently about a masochistic whore if we take them literally, penned, as usual, by Tuomas), and musically a bit hit and miss in places, mostly the chorus, but by no means the weakest song on the album.
9) For the Heart I Once Had- Another song I can't stand. The choruses are fairly unremarkable in sound, and Anette's voice in the verses sounds sort of like she's been sucking helium balloons. To be fair, the only singer I can see pulling off those kind of vocals without irritating my ears is Liv Kristine, and this being Nightwish, and not Leaves' Eyes, she is not on vocals, rendering the question merely academic. Lyrically, it's another song about lost innocence, a lyrical subject sure to be familiar to regular Nightwish listeners. It even references "the dead boy", a recurring symbol of said subject, however, I cannot see "For the Heart..." ever taking on the classic status of the original "Dead Boy's Poem".
10) The Islander- The music for this was written entirely by Marco, and it's the album's second ballad- this time in a rather Celtic style, coincidentally fitting in rather nicely with the following two tracks, and, unusually, the lead vocals being done by the bassist himself. I say unusual, because pretty much all the Nightwish songs where Marco has played a major part have, up until now, been towards the heavier end of the spectrum- MPG, Slaying the Dreamer, Planet Hell, etc. In this, he gets a chance to show off his softer vocals, and they are very pleasant indeed. I hope to hear more of them in the future. Anette also appears in this song, performing backing vocals in some parts, and whilst I'm still not fond of her voice, her voice is sweet enough and soft enough to work well behind Marco's in this instance. Whilst it will never be one of my most listened to tracks of the album- ballads aren't really my thing- it's a very pleasant track.
11) Last of the Wilds- FINALLY! 4 albums, one EP and 3 DVDs after Oceanborn, Tuomas finally pens us another instrumental. And it is filled with jiggy joy! It's one fault, however, is that it's rather repetitive- unlike Moondance, which stands on it's own as an instrumental, LotW, due to it's structure, does feel like there should be voices in there. If you think like this, Nightwish have released "Eramaan Viemeinen", a Finnish language version of LotW with vocals by Jonsu of Indica, also a very pretty song.
12) 7 Days to the Wolves- Firstly, I need to say that I like this song very much, but what eejit decided to put the best part of the song up as a sample on the website?! The rest of the song feels like a bit of a disappointment at first, looked at like that. However, setting that aside, it's a very nice track- musically, one of the best on the album. Like the opening track, it's an epic, orchestrally heavy song with a catchy chorus sung by both Marco and Anette. However, I feel Anette's vocals let the song down. To me, it's one of her worst vocals performances on the album, probably THE worst, in fact- the song in general, and the "Light the fire, feast..." part in particular highlight a screamy, shouty note to her voice which irks me.
13) Meadows of Heaven- The album's third ballad, closing track, and only song featuring a gospel choir on the album. Firstly, as I've said before, ballads are not my thing. I listen to them less than other songs, by and large. 7 minute ballads, I need to be in a very specific mood to listen to. And I'm really not fond of having a ballad as a closing track of a metal album. So, having a 7 minute ballad as the album's closer does rather put a dampner on things for me, and is a bit of an anticlimax. The ending of the song is rather climatic- gospel choirs and soloists going right and left, the orchestra booming away in the background, etc. Unfortunately, to get that far, you have to sit through about 5 minutes of saccarine vocals, cheesy Disney-esque orchestrations and yet more lyrics about lost innocence. Yeah, you may have guessed, it's not really my kind of song. It's not that it's bad, in it's way it's very impressive, but for me, Sleeping Sun, 4 minutes long and played with a synthesiser, no orchestra, somehow sounded so much more epic than this, for me. Another track I tend to skip.
Overview- This is undoubtedly a good and worthy album, don't get me wrong. However, for me, Nightwish could, and have, done better.
The main areas of this are:
Similarity to Once- Perhaps more so than any other pair of Nightwish albums, Once and DPP are very similar. To be honest, the only major change is the vocalist. We still have the orchestra, we still have the 10+ minute epic, we still have the keyboard driven, female vocal-lead first single, followed by a heavier, technoish second single, with Marco on the chorus. We still have several songs that are pretty skippable, and we have a sprinkling of Tuomas's latest cultural favourite (in this case, the Celtic feel of some of the later songs, rather than the Native American themes of Creek Mary's Blood). Hopefully this is simply to ease the transition between singers, and will ease off soon.
Vocals- I know, I know, some Nightwish fans may shoot me for this, but I don't like Anette's vocals. Actually, dislike is perhaps the wrong term. By and large, I am fairly indifferent to them. Very few moments made me feel anything, either positive or negative (though sadly, more negative) about her voice. And before anyone says it, no, I am not a rabid Tarjaholic. Up until I heard Anette, I thought and hoped that Nightwish would pick a fantastic vocalist who I would enjoy listening to. Alas, her voice is not sexy to my ears. Sad, but such is the matter of taste. And just to be clear on this, perhaps I'm paranoid from being around the Nightwish forum too long, but if I do get any rabid Anette loonies using the Tarjaholic excuse on me, I WILL tell you to fuck off and die, KK?
The lyrics- Well, they're not bad by and large, and, TBH, I don;t usually pay much attention to them, but to me, BBB and MPG, as I said above, just feels like someone's laying on the victimisation and such with a shovel, which may not be the case for all I know, but much as I hate to think it, it is coming across that way. And whilst this isn't Tuomas's fault, having yet more songs about lost innocence is starting to get old. I mean, they've always been littered through Nightwish's discography, and it's a big thing for Tuomas. BUT then Century CHild came out, it was basically a concept album about this idea, and it did it brilliantly. But after this, the theme is feeling a tad repetitive, pretty as it is.
However, it is a good album. Maybe even a great album. If you like Nightwish, or symphonic metal in general, you should certainly check it out.
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Post by Zoicite on Jan 12, 2008 6:50:29 GMT
I actually have a strong, unwavering opinion on this, which I will say after I note that I'm very glad this place is still alive.
Nothing will make me love the new singer. Nothing in any world.
I love Tarja, and this new singer just sounds horrible compared to her.
I and my forum mates on ff.net actually followed the trail of the dissention, as our own forum is even named after a Nightwish song. I still don't understand some of it, but it's clear that I will never love anyone who takes Tarja's place as much as her. Not to mention, the new girl's vocalism is just plain odd. Tarja had a sultry, husky feel, and this one...just doesn't. She's on a totally different key.
*is obviously a raging Tarjaholic*
I just love pretty (older) women....*floats off, satisfied with the mini-rant*
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Post by himiko on Jan 13, 2008 23:26:27 GMT
For me, oh yes she most certainly does. A billion times over. *tuts* Crazy person. More Mab for the rest of us then ;D And indeed, the pictures of you and her were lovely! Zoicite: Are you a member of the Tarja forum, perchance- I swear I've seen your icon on there somewhere, but perhaps it's just someone with the same or similar icon. I too loved Tarja's voice, but for me, it's not so much that Anette replaced Tarja, as Anette's voice is not to my taste. They should have got Hansi Kursch instead *nods sagely* He would have kicked arse.
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