"Dark Passion Play" by Nightwish

I recently obtained Nightwish's new album, "Dark Passion Play" (DPP for short). For those of you not in-the-know, Nightwish is a Finnish symphonic power metal band who on all previous albums was fronted by a female operatic vocalist, Tarja Turunen. If they aren't the first, they are definetly the most famous band of their kind to use such vocals.

Due to internal issues, the band replaced Turunen with a more 'traditional' sounding vocalist, Anette Olzon. Fans have been pretty divided over this, even before hearing Olzon sing. Originally I was put off Nightwish because I thought it strange to have opera singing with metal. But once I got beyond that, I fell in love with the music and came to like Turunen's voice just fine. Though I had no allegiance to Turunen I was worried that a non-operatic voice would not be able to withstand the power and bombast of Nightwish's sound.

I was wrong. Gleefully so.

Musically, the album is Nightwish. That is who it sounds like, no one else could of created this album. When put into their discography chronologically, I can see how it logically flows out of their previous album, "Once". DPP follows the heavier, more aggressive, crunchier sound of "Once" and one-ups it. "Once" also was the first album to try to utilize a full orchestra and choir but DPP multiplies that by 10. Where "Once" had an orchestra backing up the songs, the orchestra IS the songs on DPP, making the album a gigantic monstrosity of dynamic sound. Some versions of DPP come with a second CD of just instrumental/orchestral versions of the songs. I've heard a few of these and it is amazing how well they stand up without lyrics or lead guitars to carry the songs through, each song standing well on just the orchestra/choir.

Vocally I think Olzon's voice does just fine. Vocal duties are split evenly across this album between Olzon and bass guitarist/male vocalist Marco Hietala. Hietala previously primarily sung back-up/duets with Turunen but never really got to shine on his own. And shine he does - the man sings as well-if-not-better than the best of them. Aside from adding to the dynamic quality of the album, spreading the vocal load between the two voices helps to ease Olzon's new sound into the music and into the aural image of the band.

Comparitavely, Nightwish still does not sound like anyone else out there. Some fans accuse them of sounding more "pop-ish", likely due to Olzon's more traditional singing style and the 'catchiness' of a few of the tunes ("Amaranth" is the only one that comes to mind). I have to argue with this and point out that this is by far the heaviest, most aggressive album they've made. Furthermore, Nightwish is a symphonic power metal band - by definition power metal is epic and melodic, often more "positive" sounding. I can pick out a dozen pre-Anette Nightwish songs that could be considered "poppy" but aren't by diehard fans simply because the vocals are operatic (and in itself, operatic vocals are not traditionally "metal" either). So I think the argument is largely based on the fact that people just hate change.

Personally the album makes sense to me. There are songs on here Turunen could of sung but others I just don't think she would of worked out for. Olzon's voice adds an element of flexibility to Nightwish; there are just some songs that would be crushed under the weight of operatic vocals. And with enough attitude, a more traditional vocalist can fill the gap left by the missing "epicness" of operatic vocals. So I am perfectly happy with Olzon's voice. I also like that we get more of Marco's vocals on this album as well - and that's saying something for me, since I normally prefer female vocals.

Conclusion: I love this album. I don't have to stretch to accept it at all - it just makes sense in the flow of Nightwish's growth. The album works on a whole and most of the songs stand alone on their individual merits. We'll see how it stands the test of time but after a few days of listening to it, it is swiftly becoming my favorite Nightwish album.

HIGHLIGHTS
Bye Bye Beautiful - obvious lyrics spitting with anger. I wish I could write songs this well for the people who have done me wrong.
Amaranth - catchy or not, this'll be one of those concert favorites like "Nemo", "Bless the Child", and "Wishmaster". This is the song people are judging the whole album on, which they shouldn't, but it's still a great song.
Sahara - I like the subtle nature of this song. The chorus has this understated power that love. I think Olzon's vocals shine best on this track.
The Islander - written by Hietala, an accoustic sea ballad. It gives me chills. There have been a few other accoustic songs in Nightwish's history and this is the best. My favorite track. Olzon's backing vocals are the cherry on top.
Last of the Wilds - instrumental Celtic influenced song with fiddles and pipes. A rousing song - something Runrig may of done if they were metal. Love it!

Theatre of Tragedy

Theatre of Tragedy is a gothic metal band from Norway. Interestingly, I found them through another gothic metal/folk metal band called Leaves' Eyes. Leaves' Eyes is fronted by Liv Kristine, who used to be the female vocalist for Theatre of Tragedy. :D

Theatre of Tragedy started out as a gothic doom metal band often credited as the first of its kind to feature dual male and female contrasting vocals, influencing an entire generation of European metal that followed. Another distingushing element to ToT's music was that they originally wrote all of their lyrics in Old English.

ToT's first three full-length albums are completely in Old English and are thoroughly doom/gothic metal. The first two albums are darker and not as well polished as their later work and include harsh male growls and grunts, which I'm not overly fond of. Liv Kristine's vocals are high soprano, fragile and secondary to the male vocals at times.


This all changes with their third, and best liked, album Aégis. Aégis loses the male death grunts and instead Raymond sings in a kind of narrational sort of way. The album has a theme of women of European mythology. The songs are more accessible than their previous albums with more polish, stronger song structure, and choruses you can even sing along to (if you can remember odd lyrics in Old English, that is). They've added string-sounding keyboards, which almost make this album 'symphonic metal'. The result is beautiful, dark, well crafted album that has become one of my favorites of all-time.

After Aégis, ToT went on to evolve their sound, focusing more on keyboards and programming, and dropping the Old English completely for modern English. Their next album, Machine is a kind of techno-rock with some good songs here and there. After that came Assembly where the shift in style is complete. Gone are any hints of metal - this is a pop rock album with heavy synths. "Superdrive" is a perfect example of the shift the band took.

Unfortunately, Raymond's vocals remain front and center for most of the songs, always as a kind of narrator, never actually singing. After a while it gets really old - particularly when Liv Kristine's voice is the best part of the music. She's almost audibly being pushed to the side.

After Assembly Liv left the band to concentrate on her own project, Leaves' Eyes, with her husband - a folk-metal band focusing on Viking and nature imagery. Meanwhile, ToT returned to their metal roots, probably due to the resurging popularity in the genre due to bands like Within Temptation and Lacuna Coil. They hired a new female vocalist who sounds remarkably like Liv and recorded the album Storm.

It's a solid album - the tracks purposely flow into one another in a jarring manner, not too sure what I think about that. Storm takes what was best in Aégis and combines it with the successful polish and structure of Assembly for an updated version of their own metal music. It'd be like Lacuna Coil adding epic keyboard synth strings to their music.

A highly inventive band, for sure. Their successes are strung out across several albums (except for the entirety of Aégis) but in a lot of ways I think other bands took what ToT started and made it even better (Within Temptation, Lacuna Coil..)

Lacuna Coil: Karmacode

Lacuna Coil
I already have all of Lacuna Coil's earlier albums (In A Reverie, Halflife, Unleashed Memories, Comalies).

Karmacode is their latest, just came out this year. Their name isn't well known in the U.S. from what I can tell though their music is everywhere - I even heard them one day in Fred Meyers. Their music is in countless movies (like Underworld) and videogames and they grace the shelves of Hot Topics everywhere.

One criticism of LC is that songs on each album run together, sounding too alike. Their sound is so even across the board that you can listen to nearly their entire discography on mix (barring Karmacode) and you'd have a hard time feeling that the songs were from different albums. I do have a hard time remembering which song is from which album but in the instance of LC I like the smoothness and lack of contrast of their songs. I bought all their albums at once *because* I liked the way they sounded - so I consider their "same across the board" style to be a boon to me. There aren't any huge leaps in evolution, so you can mix all their music in any order and it works and feels right - so it's not such a bad thing.

Karmacode, however, is a bit of an evolution. Again, a lot of the songs run together a bit on the first few listens. The sound is a bit more polished and a bit more commercial with less inventiveness but with the same LC sound. This time through there are songs I don't care for and overall only three songs really stand out for me, "Within Me", "Devoted", and "What I See". Oh, and they even do a fun cover of Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence" that I like. So, some good, some bad.

The Gathering

The Gathering
In my search for more goth metal music I came across this group, a Dutch alternative rock band that is actually one of the bands that started and popularised the whole goth metal/doom scene, predecessors to more well known groups today like Lacuna Coil and Evanescence. Perhaps most important of all is that this is the band that originated lead female vocals for the genres.

Their music is very atmospheric - it doesn't thrash; it is metal in that it uses heavy guitars. The "doom" category is actually a label for darker immagery or mood and/or lyrics. They do have a dark mood, but it is not depressing. I often use the word "epic" do describe their songs because the songs could fill valleys with their soaring mood, though the term is more often used for symphonic or power metal, which the Gathering is neither. I find it inspiring to listen to their music outdoors in the mountains - it feels wrong to cloister the songs indoors.

The vocalist, Anneke, has an ethereal alto, flitting between notes like Sarah McLachlan - very talented and in command of the music while also flowing with it. Despite their status of being one of the parent bands of dark alternative rock and despite their major popularity (at least in Europe) they are sadly missing in the United States music scene.

I quickly visited Amazon.com and bought their first, second, and fourth albums with Anneke, Mandylion, Nighttime Birds, and if_then_else.

Mandylion definetly has a metal feel to it but with hints of tribal influence. "Eleanor" has epic, subtle bass walks; "In Motion #1" has a beautiful, soaring rolling gait; "Mandylion" is a tribal drum and vocal piece; and "Sand & Mercury" is an epic tale of a song, the first half of which is instrumental and is possibly one of my favorite goth metal songs of all time.

Nighttime Birds picks up the pace a little. It's songs are slightly less dark, more epic in scale and complex. Highlights include "On Most Surfaces" and "The May Song".

if_then_else is a slight departure. Enter keyboard work and a gritty, industrial feel, more rock than metal but without losing their 'large' feel. Has some tracks making it much slower than the other two albums I listed but they're beautiful songs. "Rollercoaster" is a great rock song and "Saturnine" is by far one of the best epic ballad type songs I've heard, building up to a wonderful string outro.

Conclusion
The Gathering has quickly become one of my favorite bands of all time. Their music is not standard; it's smartly written and simply beautiful.

Collide

Collide is, as Wikipedia says, an "electrogoth/industrial" group, fronted by a female vocalist. Their music is dark, edgy, and often kind of erotic/sensual. I already have their album Some Kind of Strange which I totally love but this time I found songs from albums that were released before and after. Some songs were far darker than those from SKoS but for the most part they keep this interesting thread of melody through the darkness. It takes me awhile to get into dark industrial music - it took me a long time to get into Front Line Assembly, for instance. But once I find a hook, that glimmer of warmth, the intimidating factor of the music just kind of wraps around me outwardly, almost protectively. Does that make sense? Anyway, great evening music, I really like them.

Songs I reccomend:
Somewhere
Shimmer
Complicated

Edgy, gritty, sensual, with a kind of World/India ethereal darkness to it. Electrogoth/industrial is a broad descriptor but that's what they are with spice thrown in. Highly reccomended.

Symphonic/Goth Metal

Symphonic goth/metal

A Wikipedia article about Symphonic Metal
A Wikipedia article about Gothic Metal

Symphonic goth metal is basically unheard of in America. The closest thing we have is Evanescence (which I don't care for) and even then it's still not anything like its European cousin/predecessor. From the vast amount of symphonic goth/metal [sgm] bands, you'd think that's all they listened to over there. ;) It's definetly not like anything on the radio in the US, or possibly in the UK, either, seeing as how it's kind of hard to find even sgm stuff there (according to Trey, anyhow) and so for most Americans it seems to be an acquired taste.


The first I ever heard of it was when Trey showed me some songs by Dutch band Within Temptation. I knew one of their non-metal songs, "Neverending Story" from a Xena fan-vid that was made from the song. I was shocked to hear all this other music that they made. It was their not-so-metal stuff that pulled me in first. Songs like "Ice Queen" and "Dark Wings". Their older stuff contained "death growls" which are apparently typical of goth/dark metal and at first I didn't know what to make of them. The thing that got me beyond the death growls was the fact that the music was so intricately done and well performed. No two songs were alike and were all so very dynamic. The guitars weren't monotonous and were all very unique. The best part was the way that Sharon del Adel's voice (she's the female/main vocalist), despite its soprano, was piercingly strong and powerful, holding its ground with the heavy guitars and orchestra. Like a dove in the face of a storm. The immagery was fantastic and it just pulled me in.

I think the immagery is the main thing. SGM music is usually thematic. You could create an epic film using a single album from most of the bands. It's "musical" that way, almost sound trackish -- and generally I'm not big on musicals or soundtracks. I think because I saw that first Xena video I could see the power of the image within the songs. But strong immagery is part of SGM music, it seems -- usually medieval, fantasy, warriors, magic, ladies, vikings, stormy weather, lost love, romantisiced death, and all that is dark in that romantic way. This actually was not a selling point for me, but at least for Within Temptation, it did help pull the songs together. Listening to the albums like they are a story, like it's an aural film/story really helps the believeability for the American ear, I think. ;)


The next group I heard was Italian band Lacuna Coil. They're not really symphonic, just goth metal. All their albums could of been written in the same year for all the band evolves with their sound (or rather, doesn't -- it's more like they're slowly fine-tuning their stuff). They have two vocalists, one male, one female. The female sings on every song while the guy sings on about two thirds of them and sometimes does a harsher growlier voice, though genearlly never a "death growl" type of thing. With the dual dynamic, they can kind of do that stereotypical goth metal "soap operal" lyric thing, which isn't why I like Lacuna Coil. I like them because their guitars are so very unique and yet familiar. They don't sound like but they do remind me of Metallica - how you can tell a Metallica song anywhere, even if you've never heard it before, just because of the signature guitars and drums. Lacuna Coil has that same quality; the guitars and drums never get tired. Also, the female vocalist is more in the alto range and very powerful.

Some bands I've heard I really did not like at first- like Nightwish. Some SGM bands use a more operatic vocal that to me puts the music over the top into the realm of the absurd. (Wikipedia does, in fact, describe them as "opera metal"). Ugh.


In general, a lot of SGM bands I've heard seem to use soprano vocals in tandem with death growls. So far the only death growls I've ever been able to tolerate have been those in the first Within Temptation album (which, oddly, is my favorite of their albums - death growls and all). For me, the soprano vocals often tend to be too light and flighty; they don't hold their own with the power of the music.


Folk Metal: Leaves' Eyes

A Wikipedia article about Folk Metal

I recently discovered, quite by accident, the Norwegian folk metal band Leaves' Eyes when trying to find music by Lacuna Coil. They're once again interesting because of the folk element. Folk Metal tends to use native folk music elements. In the case of Leaves' Eyes their music hearkens back to the days of Vikings, and in fact their most recent album is about just that. (In fact, there is a sub genre called "Viking Metal", heh).

I made an offsite backup of their first album and for the most part it's pretty monotonous, actually. The vocalist sounds amazingly like Sarah Brightman, though not quite as strong and clear. They use some death growls here and there and they're quite badly done, unintelligible (you could actually mostly understand the death growls from Within Temptation) and just... un memorable. Leaves' Eyes' songs in general are not very strong - the songs all kind of run together and are not dynamic at all. Nothing pops out in most of them and it all sounds the same.

There are a couple jewels here and there, though, that I have become rather fond of. "For Amelie" is my very favorite, definetly more in the Folk Metal genre than in the symphonic/goth genre, and even then the guitars don't kick in til later. It's primarily a piano, fiddle, bass, and some kind of tinny folk stringed instrument - probably just an accoustic guitar. What makes it so great is the 3/4 time -- no one ever writes in 3/4 time. And 3/4 time with electric guitars (which, as I said, come in later) is even better. :D So the song overall has this almost lilting, wistful feel. I love it. If this genre sounds at ALL interesting to you, I reccomend this song.

I am working on making a backup of their more recent album, which seems a bit cleaner in terms of instrumentation, from what I can tell from four songs. So far, "For Amelie" is the lightest song by far on their first album. "Mourning Tree" is an even lighter song on their current album, mostly accoustic guitar with fiddle and flute, some keyboard strings, etc. - with no grinding guitars at all. I think they shine best when sticking closer to their folk element than to the goth/metal side of things.
____________________

I doubt anyone will find this particularly interesting; I just felt like writing. It's kind of a mini-rundown of my thoughts about European symphonic/goth metal and related bands that I've heard so far. Description of the music, what I like about it, what I don't like about it... We just simply don't have it here in America, and I wonder how many people are aware of it who might like it. Definetly an acquired taste for Far-Western ears but fun nonetheless.

The Birthday Massacre

This is one of those wonderful instances of happy accident. My boss was the one who stumbled upon The Birthday Massacre (TBM for short) while looking for a "happy birthday" song to send to someone for their birthday. He found the song "Happy Birthday" by TBM and was disturbed by it. I went and listened to it to see what he was talking about and liked what I heard. I made offsite backups of their songs to review before purchasing both their albums Nothing and Nowhere and Violet.

TBM's music is hard to describe. It has heavy synth-goth electric guitars remeniscent of APerfectCircle/Lacuna Coil/The Cure - with that warped echoey 80's sound. The chord progressions are not your typical metal/goth at all. Then there's all this 80's synth that sounds like something from an 80's cartoon film like Rainbow Brite except that the mood of the music overall kills any potential cheesyness usually associated with such synths. And that's the key to the music - the mood it captures. The lyrics themselves are dark; horror stuff - like a narration from the video game "Alice" or if you made depressing endings for 80's films like "Pretty in Pink" and "Sixteen Candles". TBM's name comes from one of the songs, about a literal birthday massacre where the birthday boy and his girl kill all the guests. But if you weren't paying attention to the lyrics of most of their songs you wouldn't guess that's what they were sinigng about because the music doesn't have that immediate sense of doom or horror that most pop-goth music does.

The most impressive thing for me is the nostalgia of it. You probably had to of grown up as a kid in the 80's to really appreciate this: for me, my most treasured memories of being a kid in the 80's were of swords and sorcery, of riding horseback and defeating immesurable etherial magics. Stuff like "The Neverending Story", "Labyrinth", and Jim Henson's "the Storyteller" capture that dark mythology with creatures equally scary and creepy but fascinating and magical. TBM's music, for me, captures the sound of my memories, the way I felt back then, believing in this drama much larger than me. Their music is at once 80's but dark and mysterious and modern at the same time. I've never heard anything that FELT like a memory before; like I know it. It's like smelling something that you hadn't smelled since you were a kid and wondering how the hell it could be here, now, and being overtaken with memory at it.

So, yeah. Yay! I likey very much. Oh, and very cool - they recorded this as their previous incarnation "Imagica" - they did a remake of the Neverending Story theme song. :D Which is probably the most positive/bubbly thing they've done by far, but hey....

Edit to add: I always thought the lyrics and mood of their song "The Dream" described the main character Sarah of the film Labyrinth pretty well. Then one day I stumbled across a fan video for Labyrinth that uses this song! It's not half bad, either. :D