Nightwish – The Rankening!
Nightwish – The Rankening!
By Rory Bentley
It’s the weekend, so you know what that means- some kind of waffling article from one of us! This one from me is not going to be that deep, resorting as I am to the tried and tested engagement farming format of the list! We’re trying to avoid doing too many of these, but since my favourite band has just released a new album and I haven’t got the brain power to write anything profound, let’s just have some fun with it!
Despite looking like the third thug from the left in a John Wick film and being wedded to all things Punk and ‘Core, Nightwish are my favourite band and have been for a long old time. They just do something to my brain that makes me feel like a kid experiencing the magic of the world for the first time. They’reDisney in the best way and, despite being sonically a million miles away from the bands people associate me with, there’s something Punk as fuck about making deeply unfashionable, pompous and grandiose music with zero compromise and becoming one of the biggest Metal bands of the last 30 years.
As I stated before, this is just a little bit of craic, based solely on my own preference so there’s no need to overanalyze or be a big meany to me in the comments, but I’m also interested to hear your rankings. Unless you’re EM scribe Rick Eagleston and you think “Once” is the worst album. Because that’s straight up nuts.
10. Human II Nature
In the icy grip of lockdown, I was desperate to like this one. You always give the artists you love a little extra leeway, but Nightwish’s 9th album just ain’t it, chief. Despite being a sprawling double album, there is something slight and undercooked about the record, with some tracks that surely would not have made the cut on previous efforts. ‘Harvest’ takes the Folk aspects of the band’s sound to a level of tweeness that even the most hardened fan would cringe at, and there are a few songs that seem pretty interchangeable and superfluous, preoccupied with whatever Science book Tuomos has been reading at the time and unnecessarily lyrically verbose at the expense of a memorable melody. The entirely orchestral second side is also an indulgence too far in my opinion, lacking the drive and catchiness of the movie scores Tuomos is trying to emulate.
It’s not all duds, and there are some fantastic songs on there, such as the raucous ‘Noise’ and the sublime ballad ‘How’s The Heart’, but this is still comfortably the weakest Nightwish offering to date despite some undeniable highlights.
9. Angels Fall First
Objectively speaking, Nightwish’s debut has a lot more wrong with it than the bottom ranked album. The recording budget and the band’s own chops fall well below what is required to execute their lofty ideas, the production kind of sucks and some of the lyrics are straight up bad. And don’t even get me started on Tuomos’s spirited but ultimately regrettable stab at lead vocals on ‘The Carpenter’ and ‘Beauty and The Beast’! Somehow though, there is a charm and infectious enthusiasm to the record that largely eclipses its glaring flaws. Though not yet at the apex of her powers, Tarja Turunen’s voice is often magnificent and at once distinctive on the likes of the sumptuous ‘Astral Romance’ and the dramatic ‘Tutankhamen’. Plus opener ‘Elvenpath’ goes so hard that I’ll happily shout along to the silly wizards and goblins lyrics like I’m at a Sick of It All concert with zero shame. The songs from here that were dusted off for the band’s “Decades” tour also held up incredibly well as they rubbed shoulders with more revered material.
8. Wishmaster
From here on out it’s all gravy, baby! Nothing but net all the way up to the number one spot in my opinion, so prepare for varying degrees of tedious gushing! In many ways 2000’s “Wishmaster” is the most direct, straightforward NW album, the band were three albums deep and had mastered the core of what their early sound would be. It has a great balance of ripping bangers and tender ballads and is more of a tightening and tweaking of the formula rather than a huge leap forward. What it lacks in creative fearlessness, however, is more than made up for in sharp, precision-guided Symphonic Power Metal.
‘She is My Sin’ is an anthem so melodically sound and energised that all three NW lead singers can stake a claim as to delivering the definitive live version, and ‘The Kinslayer’ is an unsettling, hard-edged attempt to tackle the real life horror of high school shootings. Meanwhile the shimmering ‘Come Cover Me’ and the tear-jerking ‘Dead Boy’s Poem’ ensure that there’s plenty of room to ugly-cry your mascara off along the way. Not me obviously. I don’t wear mascara.
Throw in the fact that the title track is an absolute rager for the ages and you’ve got the recipe for a record that many fans would rank much higher. He might be genuinely insane for putting “Once” at the bottom, but Rick’s ranking of this as the ‘Wish’s finest hour is much easier to understand.
7. Yesterwynde
The newest addition to the catalogue, and one that could well make its way much further up the rankings with time. Nighwish’s brand spanking new 10th release is a stunning return to form likely to feature at the business end of my 2024 AOTY list. After being underwhelmed by the singles and more than a little resentful that Nuclear Blast didn’t deem our fine little site worthy of an advanced copy to review, I feared that Tuomas had disappeared too far down the Science rabbit hole and too far up his own arse to recapture that magical feeling of wonder that made me love the band in the first place.
Despite taking a while to get to grips with though, I am immensely relieved to be eating a big old plate of crow and looking like a dildo for ever doubting him. Normally when a band says that their album needs to be consumed in one sitting, I assume this is shorthand that it’s going to be overly long, and they haven’t written any memorable songs. Thankfully this is not the case here, and despite no obvious singles and a runtime and concept that require some active engagement on behalf of the listener, “Yesterwynde” is a great Nightwish album.
Floor delivers her best studio vocal performance, whether bellowing the skin off your face on ‘An Ocean of Strange Islands’ or reducing you to a blubbering mess on the gorgeous ‘Lantern Light’, and there is a real drive and purpose to each song despite consistently abandoning more common compositional structures. Kai Hahto gets to flex his drumming chops a little more as well, if not quite as maximalist as his work on the other huge epic album he’s on this year, and the addition of his Wintersun bandmate Jukka on bass makes for a ferociously tight rhythm section.
It might not win over all of the old school fans, but I’m arse over tit in love with this record and it is only down here because of the decade plus head start the other releases have had over it to embed themselves into my consciousness.
6. Dark Passion Play
Back in 2007 after giving Tarja the elbow in a very public manner that really wasn’t a great look for either party, this album was make or break for the band. With new singer in Rock/Pop starlet Annette Olzon, a decidedly more palatable Pop direction and a bloated runtime, “Dark Passion Play” could well have tanked. Thankfully it did quite the opposite and proved to be the band’s most successful record to date. Despite some clear limitations performing Tarja’s material live (though even this was way better than many bad faith revisionists would have you believe), Olzon’s crystal clear, slick vocals were the perfect match for anthemic hits like ‘Amaranthe’ and ‘Bye ByeBeautiful’, pulling in a new fanbase that may have found Tarja’s operatics a bit much.
Despite having a knack for a radio banger, Tuomos still brought plenty of old Nightwish bluster to the table on the stunning epic ‘The Poet and The Pendulum’, and the lilting Eastern-tinged ‘Sahara’. Sure, the album could maybe do with a trim here and there, but any record that contains songs as gorgeous as ‘The Islander’ and as adrenaline-charged as ‘Seven Days to the Wolves’ deserves to rank at the top end of all but the finest band’s discographies.
5. Oceanborn
Album number 2 and a huge fan favourite, ‘Oceanborn’ represents a huge landmark in the creation of Symphonic Metal, and the most complete realisation of the early Nightwish sound. Although comparatively skeletal in light of what would follow, the production still holds up remarkably well and there is an assuredness to both the compositions and performances here, which when combined with the youthful enthusiasm of the first album makes for a pretty irresistible proposition. ‘Stargazers’ is about as good an opening as NW ever produced, and ‘Gethsemane’ is a neoclassical masterpiece that is blessed with some of Tarja’s best vocals and Tuomos’ best melodies.
Add to that the pounding duo of ‘Devil & the Deep Dark Ocean’ and ‘Sacrament of Wilderness’, plus the iconic ‘Sleeping Sun’ and a cover of ‘Walking In The Air’ that is so much better than it has any right to be, and you have the first true classic in the band’s catalogue.
4. Endless Forms Most Beautiful
Having negotiated the choppy waters of publicly firing another fucking singer, Nightwish had established what is regarded my most now as its classic lineup. Along with Multi instrumental wizard Troy Donockley, the band welcomed Floor Jansen aboard who proceeded to absolutely fucking body every opportunity thrown her way and become the definitive Nightwish singer. “Endless Forns…” would feature her first studio contribution since taking the Owl-adorned Symphonic Metal throne, and she did not disappoint. And nor did the album.
Not content with writing an album, a film score and an actual movie last time out, Tuomas set about creating an album that covers the entire history of life on earth! Gone were the fantastical lyrical flights of fancy, replaced by a more secular but no less inspired awe for the natural world and evolution. The album will be mostly remembered for the towering 24 miniutemonster closer ‘The Greatest Show On Earth’, which basically completes epic songwriting forever, but there’s so much more to enjoy.
The audio sunbeam of optimism that is ‘Elan’ is pure Celtic Pop heaven, while the gritty ‘Yours is An Empty Hope’, with Floor tackling Death Metal vocals, and ‘Weak Fantasy’ offer the band’s heaviest material to date. There’s something on here for fans of every side of Nightwish, and it may go down as the apex of this era of the band. Plus ‘Shudder Before The Beautiful’ just straight up whips ass.
3. Once
The hit factory. The one that catapulted them to international acclaim, and to many the definitive Symphonic Metal album. “Once” sees a band reaching the peak of their creative powers, with the epic songs being more epic and Tuomos’s hit-writing abilities going through the stratosphere. ‘Nemo’, ‘I Wish I Had an Angel’ and ‘Dark Chest of Wonders’ are titanic, timeless anthems that no other band in the genre has gotten close to writing, while ‘Planet Hell’ and ‘Romanticide’ show that the band hadn’t gone soft and can still go when the moment calls.
There’s also the small matter of ‘Ghost Love Score’ being probably the band’s best song and maybe my favorite song in the history of recorded sound. Although it was Tarja’s last album with the band, she went out with a legendary performance in the booth and signed off her era in majestic fashion.
2. Century Child
There’s very little separating these top three, and at any given time they’ve all been at the top of my list, however the cohesion, flow and intangible sense of magic on ‘Century Child’ just puts it slightly ahead of “Once” for me. There is darkness and pain to the writing that Tuomos has likened to the end of innocence and the protective shell of childhood and youth as the band wrestled with the big bad world that my younger self could relate to when I first heard it. ‘Bless The Child’ is beautifully melancholic and features a superb Tarja vocal and ‘Everdream’ is as good as melodic Metal songwriting gets, but the addition of Marco Hietela on bass and vocals adds a whole new dynamic on the balls to the wall ‘Dead To The World’ and the venomous ‘Slaying The Dreamer’. Everything is perfectly paced and the epic ‘Beauty of The Beast’ is an all time great closer.
For Nightwish mark one this stands for the peak of what the outfit was capable of and is a filler-free 10/10 Metal classic.
1. Imaginareum
Say what you like about Annette, but she crushes her last contribution in Nightwish. Her versatility and crystalline studio voice is the perfect foil to Tuomas’s finest collection of songs and compositions to date. “Imaginaerum” is everything I want from a Nightwish album and more. It has massive festival-ready pumpers like ‘Storytime’ and the killer ‘I Want My Tears Back’,wondrous flights of fancy like ‘Arabesque’ and ‘last Ride of The Day’, and incredible, widescreen mega ballads like the Morricone-esque ‘Turn Loose The Mermaids’ and the majestic ‘The Crow, The Owl and The Dove’.
All of this is strung together through a heartwarming story about creativity, love and looking back on a life well lived. Of course,it’s a bit twee and naive in places, but all the best films you watched as a child were. It doesn’t stop you from welling up as a fully grown adult when ET makes the bike fly, or when they finally find Nemo (no pun intended). The world is a hard enough place as it is and sometimes, we need a little magic to take the edge off and that’s exactly what this album and this wonderful band does.
So that’s it, that’s my ranking of my favorite band, and I don’tcare who knows it! Normal shouty Hardcore and grizzly Death Metal talk will now resume until we get to the end of year list where I’m going to try and sneak “brat” at the top of my list without Beth noticing. Eternal Hails etc…
Disclaimer: This article is solely the property of Rory Bentley and Ever Metal. It is strictly forbidden to copy any part of this article, unless you have the strict permission of both parties. Failure to adhere to this will be treated as plagiarism and will be reported to the relevant authorities.
