Despite the unwavering presence of founder member, composer, and keyboard player Tuomas Holopainen, the Nightwish of today is very different to the Nightwish which began in 1996. From a three-track demo to multi-million dollar selling albums featuring full orchestras and huge production values, the band has grown from three Finnish musicians to becoming a multinational enterprise.
Each new record brings fresh challenges, and for their tenth album Yesterwynde (Nuclear Blast Records) the band not only had to find a replacement for bassist/vocalist Marko Hietala but also work around the second pregnancy of singer Floor Jansen and then invent a brand new word.
Describing a feeling that cannot be found in any human language, the delicate title track features pipes, acoustic guitar, choral, and solo vocals. and begins with the sound of a flickering movie projector. True opener “An Ocean of Strange Islands” is layered with playful keys, a spidery instrumental break, booming basslines from recently added four-stringer Jukka Koskinen, and clear, soaring vocals from Jansen. After culminating with Troy Donockley‘s trademark Uilleann pipes, “The Antikythera Mechanism” steps in with cinematic drama and a formidable mid-paced stomp.
Utilising a children’s choir, portentous single “The Day of…”’ boasts a magnificent instrumental break and an opening that sounds suspiciously like the theme to classic Walter Hill thriller The Warriors. Written about how every single one of us is lucky to even exist in the first place, “Perfume of the Timeless” builds slowly and powerfully before a classic Nightwish release. Driven predominantly by bass, Kai Hahto‘s stentorian drums, and Floor’s vocals, it’s Emppu Vuorinen‘s guitar, Tuomas’s signature Andrew Lloyd Webber-style keyboard licks, and the orchestrations which steal the show here, especially on the song’s thunderously heavy breakdown.
Similar to “Harvest” from the last record, “Sway” moves away from the cut and thrust bombast of previous songs, taking a much more gentle approach. Next track, “The Children of ‘Ata” requires a brief history lesson… In 1965, a group of Tongan children took a boat and became shipwrecked on the uninhabited Polynesian island of ‘Ata. Fifteen months later, the teenage castaways were miraculously discovered alive and well by a passing fisherman and returned home. So, while a plaintive introduction sung in Tongan might not be the first choice of how to begin a Nightwish song, this at least explains it. Add some chanting, an uptempo beat, and eighties synthpop keys and you have one of the best songs on the album by some distance.
Often evocative of the band’s earlier years, “Something Whispered Follow Me” boasts some of Floor’s finest vocals with the band to date while the sultry “Spider Silk” follows closely behind. “Hiraeth” begins with gentle acoustic picking and Troy trading vocals with Floor, the song eventually springing to life with double-kicks and a brisk folky melody.
The penultimate cut “The Weave” takes its cues from Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt, its dancing playfulness a quirky lull before Floor belts out one of her most powerful notes on the album. Nightwish records tend to climax either with bombastic explosions of excess or by simply fading away, and the soothing “Lanternlight” falls firmly into the latter category as the band quietly shut down the movie projector that began the album.
Over a hundred minutes of music requires a lot of concentration. While most of the big hitters come during the first half, there’s treasure to be found everywhere, even if possibly by accident (was that really a slightly reworked Star One riff and the shark attack theme from Jaws 3D?). No twenty-plus minute extravaganzas this time either, the longest song coming in at under ten minutes. And as for Marko’s absence? Well yes, it’s felt, but only rarely as Donockley does such a good job with his vocals.
Dense and cinematic, accessible but exploratory, Yesterwynde is yet another beautifully constructed record by the undisputed masters of symphonic metal.
Buy the album here:
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8 / 10
GARY ALCOCK