Replacing a key member is never easy and when your key member is considered to be, however erroneously, the figure-head of the band it becomes all but impossible.
When Nightwish fired Tarja many considered it to be the end of the band because they assumed, wrongly, that Tarja was the driving force that gave the band their power. That assumption did a grave disservice to Tuomas Holopainen’s astonishing song-writing skills and ‘Dark passion play’ proved that Nightwish are, and always were, far more than an impressive, albeit diva-like, opera singer. Sadly many were left unconvinced by new singer Annette Olzon, largely because of her marked difference to her predecessor rather than down to any lack of skill on her part; and yet on ‘Dark Passion play’ Anette turned in a fine performance that should have won her plaudits rather than mealy-mouthed criticism. Following a tour dogged with stress, not least the infamous show when the criticism overcame Annette and she left the stage in tears, questions were raised about Nightwish’s future and the band vanished from sight.
However, in recent months tantalising hints began to emerge about an ambitious new project. Named ‘Imaginarium’ the album was to be a full-blown conceptual piece with a movie and artwork to match and as details of the project slowly seeped out the internet buzz reached fever pitch.
‘Dark Passion Play’ was a great album that was dogged, not by any failure on the band’s part, but by the unreasonable weight of expectation placed upon it before it had even been recorded. Here we find Nightwish recording an album largely shorn of expectations, at least with regards to the vocalist, and it is interesting to note that ‘Imaginarium’ would almost certainly not have worked with Tarja’s bombastic approach. This is an album of stark contrast. The epic feel of ‘Dark Passion Play’ and ‘once’ has been retained with huge swathes of sweeping orchestral work flowing through the album, but there is also subtlety and restraint and Anette’s playful voice is perfect for the subject matter and feel of the album. Moreover, whilst the band have not reneged on their symphonic side, ‘Imaginarium’ is an album of devastating heavy-metal power when it chooses to be. As opening single ‘storytime’ kicks in, the guitars rip a hole through the Hans Zimmer-esque score that introduces it before the track dips into a chorus that is painfully memorable and addictive. A modern reimagining of ‘the snowman’s’ classic flight sequence, ‘storytime’ perfectly encapsulates the myriad wonders to be found on the album. Although thematically linked, the songs work in isolation and the music is ubiquitously stunning meaning that it is possible both to sit and listen to the whole piece as one beautiful work of art or dip in to your favourite moments and get an instant fix. By working on both levels Nightwish have ensured that ‘imaginarium’ will last far beyond the initial buzz the tracks generate and fans will get a great deal of pleasure from dimming the lights and drifting into the imaginative and intelligent world the band have crafted. ‘Ghost river’ is a case in point, a blistering work it combines Nightwish’s furious classical bombast with hints of eighties metal (via the opening riff) and the familiar brutal passages that worked so well on tracks like ‘bye bye beautiful’. If one overriding factor typifies this release it is the sense of ambition and excitement that flows from both band and composer and it is clear that any trepidation the band might have felt during the painful search for a new singer has long since abated.
Indeed if you want any evidence that Nightwish are over the difficulties of the post-‘Once’ period then look no further than the sultry, sexy ‘Slow, love, slow’ that takes the band outside their established comfort zone and sees them engaging in a stunning jazz piece that works exceptionally well. Then there’s the insanely catchy, anthemic ‘I want my tears back’ and the ferocious ‘scaretale’ to dig your claws in to and they’re all equally seismic even whilst they represent different ends of the musical spectrum. It’s bold, brave and the band pull it off with astonishing dexterity, even managing to make the whole thing seem coherent even as the music genre-hops all over the place.
It’s hard not to feel a sense of awe at the scale of ‘Imaginarium’. It is an album that more than lives up to its title with the music proving to be the most spectacularly creative of Nightwish’s career and whilst there are plenty of familiar elements for fans to hang on to, there is so much going on here that it will take you many listens to appreciate it all. Moreover Annette emerges as a much stronger singer this time round; for all that she did a fine job on ‘dark passion play’, there is a much greater sense of confidence here as she tries out different voices and attitudes, attempts everything from grinding metal to lascivious jazz and succeeds at it all, the upshot being a massive two-fingered salute to all who doubted her and vindication for the many supporters she has gathered since joining the band. Take, for example, the multiple personalities that surge through Annette’s voice during ‘scaretale’, easily one of the darkest compositions the band have attempted and then contrast that with the lilting warmth of ‘turn loose the mermaids’ – it’s a remarkable performance and one that is admirably matched by the eternally good-natured Marco Hietala who provides the perfect foil for Annette with his powerful roar.
Ultimately ‘Imaginarium’ is a wonderful gothic symphony of an album to lose yourself inside. The amazing breadth and depth of Tuomas’ vision is stunning and the band have all stepped up to deliver a tour-de-force that will be all but impossible to match. This is as grandiloquent a statement as Nightwish could ever have hoped to make and that the band have pulled it off without putting a single foot wrong is all the more impressive. Extra points must surely be given for the beautiful artwork and packaging and a bonus disc featuring the instrumental version of the album will undoubtedly please completists although it is something that will rarely grace my own player.
‘Imaginarium’ stands as a testament to both nightwish’s amazing musical proficiency and Tuomas’s skills as a composer. Quite phenomenally good – this will certainly grace many album-of the-year pages, including ours. Nightwish’s finest work yet – it will take considerable effort to top this. It seems fitting, when faced with a work of this stature, to leave this review with a quote the band use on the insert to the album: “But only in their dreams can men be truly free, ‘Twas always thus, and always will be” – John Keating.
Nightwish’s finest are you taking the piss mate?
The odd thing about music reviewing is that it is entirely subjective. Even something as superficially obvious as production technique can cause huge schisms between fans and ultimately how one person feels upon hearing something is entirely unique and personal to them. In my review I made it very clear that I felt ‘Dark Passion Play’ was a fine album and Anette Olzon a fine, underrated singer – placing myself firmly in opposition to the fans who felt Nightwish could not ever better their work with Tarja. So… (to finally answer your question) no, I am not taking the piss. I feel that the body of work they have crafted here is imaginative, bold and artistically challanging – more so than ‘once’ which, while a fine album hardly broke barriers. I don’t feel the need to engage in a war of words to defend it – but I felt, perhaps, some explanation should follow your rather pithy comment.
Yes, everthing about music is subjective. I can’t sing in the choir of people ho praise this album into heavenly heights because it’s simply not a Nightwish album to my ears anymore. They should have given a separate name to this side project.
About the music itself: Of course, the arrangements are mind-blowing, but hey, we all know that the London Symphony Orchestra can play, right? Basically they are what you hear most of the time. High-class, definitely. But not a metal album of a metal band where you can play song-by-song. The melodies don’t get stuck into my ear, except “I want my tears back” and “Storytime” – so you see in which direction my taste goes. I was never fond of musical theatre and stuff like that, I just want a great song that works fine even when extracted to the bombast around it , and with a melody I can easily sing to.
I can see in which direction Nightwish are heading. That’s fine. But they will have to head without me and my mother (who actually brought me into Nightwish and she thinks the same about the album as I do, hum, well, except for her very clear words about Annette’s voice (she hates it), a topicwhich I don’t even want to start here. Even with Tarja’s voice, I would not be too fond of this album to be honest.
It does seem to be a very much ‘love it or hate it’ type of album -and I’ve seen very few moderate responses – it’d be good to hear from other readers here – do other people like it as much as we did? Let us know!
At first I was like *blah*. But now I really enjoy this album a lot! It took awhile to grow on me. Though I’ve always listened to a lot of score music so this fits pretty well.
My first listen was like meh but after a while I couldn’t turn it off. Though I agree with Aquaria11 this doesn’t feel like a core metal album. One of my favourites of 2011 just wish they’d show there fans from the land of Australia some love and announce some tour dates.
It took me a few listens and several weeks to get used to the sound and let it under my skin, but now I have no doubt the album is amazing. First, I’ve found out over time that the really great albums, the ones that remain on your top 10 list even after several years, never work from the first listen. When the album is slowly growing on you that usually means it’s diverse, different from what you expected and works on many levels.
The second reason I would point this as a great piece of music is that it shows the band can blast through the barriers of very different styles while remaining unmistakably Nightwish. And that’s something only great bands can pull off.
As for Dark Passion Play, I think the main problem was that it was written in a time when they had no clue of the direction they would take. They even considered remaining with only Marco as vocalist. The music was very musch like that on Once, hence the contrast between Tarja and Anette which split the fans. This time, we have an album which is written with Anette in mind, created by one of the most talented composers on today’s metal scene and played by a cohesive band of insanly talented musicians at their best. The whole movie concept though sounds a bit too ambitious. I hope it works out to complement the great album and prove that Nightwish with Anette, albeit quite a different band than “old” Nightwish. works just as well. It’s the unique atmosphere and beauty of the music (and lyrics) that makes Nightwish what it is, and that is still present. If anything, they sound more like a band now than ever before.
It’s been good to see some positive comments appearing here after an initially rather hostile reaction to the album – one thing certainly seems to be a common thread and that is that the album is a grower rather than an instant fix. Keep them coming folks – it’s great to see your views on an album that still seems to be somewhat controversial.
I have listened to the ‘Imaginarium’ CD first to last 3 times now. I actually liked the album on the first listen and it is still growing on me. ‘Storytime’ sounds a little like metal ABBA to my friends, me too; I still like it. I own many of Nightwish’s efforts and I love Tarja and that period of Nightwish. I was not that fond of ‘Dark Passion Play’ as a whole, I agree that it is possible that the band was not sure what path they were going to go. I also thought that Anette had a tough time with some of the songs on ‘Dark Passion Play’ of course she nailed the more radio friendly stuff.
Anette probably had the pressure of replacing Tarja which must have been a major stress factor for her and as I understand it, she also had some personal stuff going on.
So since I am NOT the authoritative figure on music, I waited to see what was coming next.
I can say that I really enjoy listening to Anette on ‘Imaginarium’; amazing job young lady!
On another positive note, when I first watched anything I could on Youtube, I really disliked Anette inserting her pop style into the older songs. I have continued to watch and have seen a large difference recently and I will say that Anette’s renditions of ‘Ghost Love Score’, both original and acoustic versions of ‘Nemo’ and a few others are absolutely wonderful. Nice job to the band and great job to Anette. I can mix both old and new Nightwish in a single listening session and thoroughly enjoy it.
There is much I would like to say on this but I will end it here. P.S. I love how clean the posts are!
Hi Edward – thank you for your interesting post and also for your observation that posts here are clean – it always makes us very happy that SonicAbuse readers treat each other with respect and that most of what we see here are people expressing their love and passion for music!
Well, I am a fairly recent fan of Nightwish, having discovered them right after DPP and then back-listening to the Tarja-voiced albums. I love Tarja’s voice in the earlier stuff, but it was Annette and her “playful” voice, to borrow your description, which kinda hooked me on Nightwish. I thought her voice sounded very young and childlike, which is not a negative to me. On the contrary, I think it lends a youthful edge to the music which plays very well with the imaginative, fantasy subject matter of most of the songs. “The Poet and the Pendulum” captured this best to me, but is continued in Imaginaerium with songs like “I Want My Tears Back”. Sure, her voice is not the perfect operatic voice that Tarja had, but I think toward the end Tarja’s voice kinda sounded a little stale. Too much perfection without enough character. Annette’s voice is definitely growing and maturing as she explores different types of singing, but I hope she never loses that unique sound that is the perfect combination of playfulness and skilled singing with a few flaws that remind us the music is totally human in nature.
Okay Hi people
here is my grief with Anette. I have done enough complaing on Tarja’s vocal so dont come out and screaming that i am Tarjaholic. I am not one of those people. Neither of them is perfect. I am Marcoholic. I am very very suspecious about Anette’s “Live” singing. I am sorry if I am wrong but if you listen to the same song from concert to concert, you would notice it is all the same. She never runs out of breath, stopped doing HEP HEP HEP screaming and etc. I am a vocalist for my own metal band up here in Norway. Even if I sing same song every day, it will sound different. I have a feeling I COULD be wrong that there is Vocalizer or some other live correcting hardware at work. I am not saying she is lipsynching. Imaginaerum album – bleh boring. Notice that Emppu is REALLY REALLY struggling with riffs. I play bass guitar and have little to nothing to do with guitar. Why is it that the orchestra is overpowering the boys? Even drummer got sluggish. I am not mentioning about weird lyrics. I saw Nightwish in DPP live exactly 8 times. DPP was interesting from composition point, but lyrically it became to sag.. It seems like Holopainen when he was in his darkest days he was writing better lyrics and music than in Imaginarium. Tarja and NW were falling apart right after Holopainen’s 1st mental breakdown when he said NW is over. Tarja went doing her own thing (good for her I am not amuzed by her solo works). I am done complaining! Have a good one, everyone! Rock on
Hey there – thank you for your intelligently put argument – it was interesting to read and although I don’t agree wholeheartedly with what you have to say, I can see your point nonetheless.
Hi there! I *just* got my copy of Imaginaerium. Folks at my local music store don’t even KNOW what Nightwish is (and look at me dubiously when I ask), and I discovered Nightwish in the soundtrack of Alone in the Dark, in the middle of their haitus. I’ve been voracious, to compensate. So please bear with me.
First off, let me just say that it has always been the mad-talented “maestro,” Tuomas and the viking/archangel/dragonslayer Marco who have drawn me into Nightwish and its powerful music. Mind you, Empu and Jukka are not too far behind.
I was not really so much into the Tarja vs. Annette debate, but perhaps my biggest gripe towards Annette is that she seems hesitant to command the music. I can forgive her occasional “annoyingly pop” infusions, and I can forgive her for not having the bombastic presence of Tarja-era songs. However, it’s hard for me to take seriously a frontwoman who seems to get lost in the arrangement (even in songs that have been styled for her vocals), instead of embodying the literal and figurative voice that projects the song to the listener.
I’m not sure how it truly is in live performances as Youtube is my only friend, but even on a tiny screen, I am more diverted to Tuomas in the background, than Annette who’s supposed to be in front singing the main theme. But then again, Tuomas is always riveting when he rips the holy-mothercrown-jewels out of ‘dem keyboards … but I digress.
Imaginaerium is a very welcome addition to my now-growing collection of Nightwish material. I’m actually pleasantly surprised at the almost-playful voice of Annette blended with the soul-firing music that is always characteristic of Nightwish.
I don’t have a favorite yet — the closest, so far, is the musical rollercoaster of Scaretale — maybe I’m just missing Empu’s blood-sizzling leads (in Wishmaster and Nemo, for example) and Tuomas’s highly addictive keyboard sequences (Sleeping Sun, Ever Dream and Amaranth, for example). Turn Loose the Mermaids is a such beautiful melodic piece, but I’m practically begging for Annette to let her voice soar and embrace this song, rather than just hitting the right notes.
No, not quite yet Nightwish’s finest work, but it is a testament that the band is once again in the driver’s seat of its destiny. And for fans old and new, it’s going to be one heckuva ride!