NIGHTWISH — Imaginaerum (review)

NIGHTWISH — Imaginaerum album cover Album · 2011 · Symphonic Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
2.5/5 ·
Stephen
Four years in silence and they came up with this ? I can't help to say but I'm totally disappointed. Well not too much because I haven't expecting anything from that camp since Tarja left and the only thing that interest me now is Vuorinen's side project, BROTHER FIRETRIBE, but with a long tour coming ahead to support this new album, looks like there'll be no new BF album until 2013 and that just pissed me off.

I don't have any problem with Olzon's vocal like many other. I think she's okay even though I have to admit she's inferior and less powerful than Turunen, but weakness of this album is obviously on the fact that they're forcing too much to blend the album with the upcoming movie, hence making the whole sound is like a colossal movie score and not a great metal album like what they had done in the past, not to mention the painful 75-minutes duration and only half of the songs that I'm fond of.

'Storytime', the first single, is the most appealing track for me. The dark nuance made you feel like you're trapped in a wicked circus, the massive choir is awesome, I love this song. But aside from the fourth track, 'I Want My Tears Back' which is a nice commercial track with Celtic melodies, the first half was swarmed with mediocrity. 'Ghost River' has nice riffs but lack of beautiful chorus and 'Slow, Love, Slow' is contradictive to any of their style which is sounds like an old American jazz. The intro on 'Scaretale' is too long and with 'Arabesque', both will be good as score but not metal.

The second half is better. 'Turn Loose The Mermaids' is melancholic and 'Last Ride of The Day' is the classic Nightwish all over the place. The problem is in 'Song of Myself', they bored me to death after the first 3 minutes, and I can't believe I had wasted the 13-minutes of my life for it. Maybe I was expecting a contender to their classic, I'm not a hater of concept album anyway, in fact I have many albums that I love, but not this one.

As a soundtrack album, 'Imaginaerum' might do okay, but as a symphonic metal album, I'm on the other side of the river. 65% at best and I know they’re better than this!
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