Dark Passion Play review

Tense situation

Everyone who is familiar with Finnish band Nightwish knows perfectly well how this band distinguishes itself from the rest of the other notable metal acts. The band's main weapon always was vocal and this fact is simply unquestionable. Classical singing manner of Tarja Turunen has predetermined the way of Nightwish stylistic development in many respects. Of course, these were the band's musicians who composed the songs but it was vocal that made their material sound unique. It imparted some kind of a deep sense to all those fairy keyboards and uncomplicated guitars. In a word, the band's principal musical force was concentrated in Turunen's hands and everybody has been realizing it perfectly well. However in 2005 after 9 years spent together Nightwish made a totally unpredictable step and expelled Turunen form the lineup. And it wasn't like a mere offering to leave they did it deliberately loud posting an open letter with accusations for Turunen on the band's official site (this letter is still there, so if you are curious about it you can look through it here and there is also an open letter from Tarja Turunen, which is available here). At that moment of time it all looked more than just strange. First of all, the band was on the rise – their album Once, released one year before these events, has sold triple platinum in Finland, platinum in Germany, gold in Sweden and reached number one in the Greek, Norwegian and Hungarian album charts. Besides it was their first album to enter US and UK charts. Secondly, it simply indicated an unavoidable demise of the band because it was almost impossible to imagine Nightwish without Turunen. A pretty tense moment, admit that: fans are alarmed, concerts are canceled, nobody knows what is next and their label most probably is not feeling quite happy about it either. However, Nightwish headed by keyboardist Tuomas Holopainen have coped with the situation and came back with their new album Dark Passion Play two years after.

Nightwish renewed

Nightwish has started recording their new and the most intriguing album in 2006. After having done with all the instruments the band allowed everyone interested for the position of a new vocalist to send their demo tapes for audition. Finally, two months later, the band chose a certain Anette Olson – a Swedish songstress who eventually became new official front woman of the band. So, how does Nightwish sound without Turunen? Actually, a great deal of the band's features remain the same: the essence of their music consists of fairy-epic metal crossed with a huge amount of orchestration and keyboards. However, this time around everything acquired more considerable scope. Nightwish really wanted to put up a good show and applied every possible effort to look better. Their compositions became longer, more complex and honestly speaking, they sound more metal now as a whole, but not in the sense of production and guitar heaviness, they always sounded powerful, this feeling rather hides in the melodies and inner energy of the songs. It is also worth mentioning that Nightwish tried to make their material more diverse. Sometimes their new songs sound not as predictable as they used to formerly. Good examples that may stand as a convincing evidence of all these things are such tracks as Master Passion Greed or Last Of The Wilds. The former is a speedy and really heavy, guitar driven song and the latter is a very beautiful instrumental full of great Celtic melodies.

A new page in the band's history

A few words about Anette Olson. Her vocal manner is considerably different from Turunen's operatic manner. Olson doesn't sing classics. It will be quite appropriate to compare her with Within Temptation's singer, something of the kind. But it doesn't mean that the result turned out to be worse. Olson is a very strong vocalist and she fits in with the band really well. Everything sounds as if she has always been in the lineup; there is no unevenness or stylistic mismatch. Quite the contrary, she introduced new blood into Nightwish and their music began sparkling with new tints. A song called Amarath sounds very exemplifying, this is the main single of the album and Olson appears here in all her beauty. Everything sounds simple and extremely attractive. And besides, it is not necessarily true that Turunen could do it better, take For The Heart as an example – this is a typical Nightwish song, but a new charm that Olson's voice creates sounds no worse at all. The increased vocal abilities of bassist Marco Hietala who sings leading parties in Master Passion Greed and Islander and chorus in Bye Bye Beautiful and 7 Days To The Wolves deserve applause either. Those things he did on Dark Passion Play are not able to compare with his previous attempts. Today he sounds as a self-reliant metal vocalist. Overall, Dark Passion Play is a very strong record. It is a powerful counterbalance to the band's previous albums, which has an advantage over them in many respects. Nightwish started a new page of their history more than just good. Dark Passion Play will certainly help the band to widen their audience and won't let old fans turn their backs on Nightwish.

Leo Chevsky
22.10.2007