Remastered and repackaged, Once sounds nothing short of sensational and comes with three bonus discs. So how do you follow that? With ‘Kuolema Tekee Taiteilijana’ of course, a gentle ballad sung entirely in Finnish which precedes the climactic drama of ‘Higher Than Hope’. Orchestral bombast, delicate melodies, muscular riffs, a magnificent performance from Tarja and the most perfectly executed and irresistible crescendos, this is the song by which Nightwish should be measured. In ten short minutes, composer Tuomas Holopainen explores every area of his band’s sound to absolute perfection. And surprisingly from this pop metal act, it is.
While it does launch into a standard record opener (in the first single from the record Storytime), it lets you know that this album will be a little on the unpredictable side.
‘The Siren’ and ‘Dead Gardens’ remain underrated by many but only because they simply happen to fall before the powerhouse that is ‘Romanticide’ and, of course, undisputed album centrepiece ‘Ghost Love Score’. The surprise is important, because despite being a Nightwish record, it varies a lot more than you would expect. From the opening duo of ‘Dark Chest of Wonders’ and ‘Wish I Had an Angel’ through ‘Nemo’ and the Marco Hietala assisted ‘Planet Hell’, the first four tracks are an absolute statement of intent before taking a hard left turn with the slower but no less powerful Native American influenced ‘Creek Mary’s Blood’.
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