IMAGINAERUM - utwór po utworze

Papilon

Karoliina Walker założycielka oficjalnej strony Tuomasa miała możliwość usłyszeć nowy album NW. Oto jej wrażenia:

I got the call from Tuomas at the beginning of August inviting me to attend the London listening session of Imaginaerum, which of course I accepted the invitation without a moment thought.
Entering Angel Studios doors, I was faced with a room of familiar and unfamiliar faces and a grandiose PA system. After the typical greetings to people we all sat down in silence and waited to hear the first notes.

TAIKATALVI

A short introduction piece of soft piano and percussion featuring delicate male Finnish vocals As the track progresses we hear more and more elements add to it until it starts to build to a climax. The climax does not end as it jumps straight into the next track.

STORYTIME
The first single of the album that definitely delivers. It follows straight on from Taikatalvi with fast guitar and heavy meaty bass kicking out Nightwish signature styled riffs which are complemented amazing well by the powerful brass and energetic strings of the orchestra. Anette jumps in with her angelic yet very powerful vocals complemented by Marco. We then come to a calmer section featuring a peaceful choir and piano before we are hurled again into fast paced drums by Jukka which builds upon a now commanding full choir and massive guitar and bass.

GHOST RIVER

A huge intro by Emppu gives the first impression this song is going to be as powerful and as energetic as you can get. This track is one of the better examples of Anette and Marco’s ability to complement each other as their vocals dance around one another in a display of power and raw emotion. We get a very heavy and powerful orchestra which complements Emppu’s huge riffs and heavy chugging which is very typical of Nightwish.

SLOW LOVE SLOW

Admittingly my least favourite track after one listening. We get a ‘creepy’ piano intro into the song which leads the way for brushed drums and jazz themes which in my opinion do not fit with a Nightwish song. If 2 or 3 more listens will change my mind time will tell. What this song does offer however is some beautiful vocals by Anette showing us really what she has to offer. We get a technical solo from Emppu before moving aside to let the jazz styled muted trumpet solo fade out the song to a ticking clock which seems to endlessly tick as if you are waiting for something to happen like in horror movies.

I WANT MY TEARS BACK

Probably the most structured and song on the album in terms of simplicity of the verse-chorus mix. We hear Troy for the first time with his Ulian Pipes from early on in the song. It’s a very pacey with heavy guitars from the start with both Marco and Anette coming in with “I want my tears back…” before back to some amazing guitars. It brings the newly discovered Celtic/Nightwish mix together beautifully and in a way that is sounds different to the Celtic themes we had in The Islander for example on Dark Passion Play in that it keeps the Nightwish grandiose energy. A song that will probably become a favourite amongst fans very quickly due to its very punchy chorus.

SCARETALE

The most talked about track before I even heard it. Scaretale starts with a very creepy sounding nursery rhyme by the children’s choir which building with the entrance of the orchestra before breaking into a fast paced wonder with an adult choir taking over the children. We hear Jukka’s signature double bass drumming and Emppu’s punchy strumming with what I can describe as a harpsichord sounding piano line which makes way for Anette entrance with the cliché but typical Nightwish line of “Once upon a time”. Anette shows us what she is made of in this piece with some aggressive vocal lines which caught me off guard. The song twists again to a melodic mid-section which sounds pretty much like show music. We build into a crescendo again of huge guitar riffs and orchestra before we end again on the show music style. This song is a monster and really needs more listens through to capture everything going on.

ARABESQUE

Our first instrumental of the album opens with beating drums. It’s a mix of Eastern themes and huge orchestra which come together and complement each other brilliantly. There are sections where we get the choir singing “Arabesque” before breaking into a more massive build of percussion and energy before ending abruptly.

TURN LOOSE THE MERMAIDS

An acoustic soft song featuring Troy with his whistles and gentle piano accompaniment. Anette gives a breathtaking performance and shows off her talent for nearly making you weep with such beautiful lyrics.

REST CALM

Another calmer song but also includes some well placed guitar riffs. The main thing of this piece is the relationship between Marco and Anette’s vocals. There are sections where Marco starts then Anette comes in and their voices blend so well together. We get elements of the children’s choir again with Anette accompanying them. A song of great beauty.

THE CROW THE OWL AND THE DOVE

Acoustic guitar introduction with Marco and Anette harmonising at first then Marco breaking away leaving only Anette singing the actual verse. Very gentle and melodic piece with some entries of something a little stronger with Emppu’s guitar solo. Ends with Tuomas playing a beautiful piano outro.

LAST RIDE OF THE DAY

Heavy introduction with the choir (Used on Kiteen Palo theme) sets the tone for this bombastic Nightwish classic. Anette comes in with almost staccato like singing on the first part of the verse before taking a step back to allow the boys to come in with heavy instruments once more. The chorus features Marco and Anette following the piano line as they sing. We get a fantastic guitar solo from Emppu before the track builds once more to a sudden end.

SONG OF MYSELF

-From The Dusty Bookshelf
- All The Great Love Lying Still
-Piano Black
-Love
An epic orchestral introduction and the underlying sound of a music box can be heard. Very energetic and powerful choir complement Anette’s vocals before we get the progressive heavy riffs of Emppu and Marco. Anette sings the line “Song Of Me” before we jump into an orchestral interlude before building to the chorus featuring a very Tuomas styled lyric of “Same old dead boy song”. We go back into the Nightwish styled chugging guitar and bass lines with Jukka’s powerful double bass drum.
Troy plays a part in this track by reciting some of the poem that is used towards the end. The poem features different vocalists speaking the words over deep low strings of Pip’s orchestra and Tuomas’ piano. We end with the poem being completed with no backing and just the sound of water.

IMAGINAERUM

The song to be used at the end credits of the movie, we get a big flurry of orchestra as an introduction and we hear the use of a delicate harp. We hear elements of repartition in this track for example we hear a guitar riff from another song revisited. In all an electrifying mix of orchestra, choir, pipes and powerful band make this final track the icing on the cake.

To summarise “Imaginaerum” is approximately 75 minutes of on the edge of your seat roller coaster ride through fast, heavy tracks and moving into delicate and tranquil pieces taking Nightwish to a new level of composition and experimentation. If you can describe this as a ‘grown up’ album then Dark Passion Play would have been merely a baby, the start of what could be. Anette will show the doubters still amongst the fans just why she is with this band as her vocals surpass anything I could of expected from her. The harmonies between her and Marco far surpass anything we heard on Dark Passion Play.
Also the mix of the album is a damn site better than the previous album too. A wide range can be heard and the compression devil that Dark Passion Play fell foul to cannot be heard.
In all, a couple of weaker tracks like all albums but rounded up into one word - astonishing.

Tuomas dla Metal Hammer opowiedział o każym utworze.

14/09/2011 16:32pm

We’re so excited about new Nightwish opus ‘Imaginaerum’ that we got band mastermind Tuomas Holopainen to give us a track-by-track guide to the whole album!
Nightwish will release their long-awaited new album ‘Imaginaerum’ on December 5 via Nuclear Blast, so we grabbed band writer-in-chief Tuomas Holopainen for an exclusive track-by-track guide!
The album is the Finnish quintet’s follow-up to their awesome 2007 full-length, ‘Dark Passion Play’, and will be accompanied by a movie that’ll see a release some time in early 2012.

Read on for Tuomas’ guide to the album…

Taikatalvi
“Since we’re doing the movie thing, every song on this album is composed to a certain story, so that’s how it all sounded. The movie needed an intro of winter landscapes and all that, and I wanted to give it an exotic touch of being in Finnish!”

Storytime
“That’s the first single, and it’s all about the [1982] animated classic ‘The Snowman’. It’s such cool stuff, and I think that ‘Walking In The Air’ is the best piece of music ever composed, so [I thought], ‘let’s do a remake of that’! It can be seen in the movie as well – not quite as I imagine it, but in a different way. Will we film a new video for the single? We will film something separate, but also [use] some exerts from the film.”

Ghost River
“Since this is a dramatic album about the celebration of life and existence, you need the dark side as well. I love the dark side and I love all kinds of evil stuff, so we needed a few songs to describe those. ‘Ghost River’ and ‘Rest Calm’ are the two songs that are talking about the dark side of life. It’s very Van Halen-ish!”

Slow, Love, Slow
“You want to challenge yourself to do something that you have absolutely no idea about, and none of us know anything about jazz! Our drummer even had to take some lessons to learn how to use the brush! It all started when I started watching ‘Twin Peaks’ again. I just loved the soundtrack and thought, ‘Could we do something like that?’, and this is the result.”

I Want My Tears Back
“It’s maybe one of the easiest songs on the album to approach, and it’s one of the only songs on the album that doesn’t include an orchestra or choir. I love the sea part with the pipes and violin!”

Scaretale
“This is our version of ‘Enter Sandman’. When it comes to the lyrics, it’s all about childhood nightmares.”

Arabesque
“‘Arabesque’ is a catharsis to ‘Scaretale’, and it’s one of the scenes that the movie desperately needed, so that’s why it’s there.”

Turn Loose The Mermaids
“One thing that I like to do is pay a little homage to certain things that I really respect – for example, the My Dying Bride album ‘Turn Loose The Swans’ is one of my all-time favourites, which is why this is called ‘Turn Loose The Mermaids’. It’s nothing to do with My Dying Bride other than the title, but it was born in the moment when I saw my grandfather die, and my grandmother was giving him the final message. It was one of the most emotional experiences of my life – it was so dark and beautiful at the same time. I had to make a song about it – the last thing she did was check his teeth, warm his toes, and then [say] ‘Good journey my love, see you soon’. She was 93 back then, and 15 minutes after, he died. I’d never seen a dead person before, and it was an emotional moment, so I wanted to do a song about it. The album’s all about life and the power and beauty of imagination, and I thought that we needed to include the final chapter of life, which is death. When you see the movie, you can understand why it’s there.”

Rest Calm
“It reminds me of Paradise Lost and My Dying Bride a little bit. Again, it’s one of those crucial scenes in the movie that needed a song like this.”

The Crow, The Owl And The Dove
“I have to admit it’s a bit of a rip-off, because I’m a big fan of Henry David Thoreau, the poet from the 19th Century. I read his book ‘Walden’, where he said, ‘I don’t care about the love, the beauty, the pride or anything, just give me the truth. I thought there was a big philosophy behind that, and I started to think I could make a song about it. The crowd represents pride, the owl wisdom and the dove love and peace.”

Last Ride Of The Day
“I’m a fanatic when it comes to theme parks and roller-coasters. I’ve been to Disney World eight times now! Hollywood, Universal Studios, all this kinda stuff – it’s so, so, so good and you feel like a kid again. Also, it’s the perfect metaphor for life.”

Song Of Myself
“‘Song Of Myself’ is a book from Walt Witman, another one of my heroes. I wanted to pay homage to him and do the lyrics in a way that he would possibly write. It’s a real, open, thorough, personal catharsis – especially the spoken-word part. I don’t think it’s even going to be in the film because it’s so weird.”

Imaginaerum
“This is a medley for the end credits of the movie!”