Imaginaerum

"Ladies and Gentlemen, be heartlessly welcome to Cirque De Morgue and what a show we have for you tonight!"

Got the new Nightwish album today (of course!). This is going to take a few rounds to wrap my head around. Some very Holopainen manerisms still present and the overall sound is clearly noticeable as Nightwish but then there are a few things that took me by surprise. Like 'Slow, Love, Slow' which is basically jazz. I know, Nightwish + jazz = WTF?!. But it's actually pretty nice and Anette sounds so amazing in it. Of course my contact with jazz has been only through Billie Holiday's 'Gloomy Sunday' so I have no background knowledge to compare NW jazz to but hey, I like it. I suppose that's enough. The child choirs are getting more room than in DPP but that's okay. It's the only part I kept watching Will+Kate weddings last summer: the kids sounded so nice in the vastness of the Abbey. Like 'Scaretale's visuals; that's a circus I'd like to attend. Plus for including one song in Finnish, by the way!

As usual, spotting literary intertextualities in Holopainen's lyrics is always fun. There's Carroll's 'Alice in Wonderland' (mad circus, of course it's there), possibly Orhan Pamuk's 'Snow' (at least the verse is almost an accurate translation of one of the lines in the book), Edgar Allan Poe reference with the pendulum again. As for musical influences, you can so easily hear Elfman. No doubt I'll be rading something in ten years and make the connection in my head; it wasn't long ago that happened with an Oceanborn lyric. But what the hell is "Gar tuht river/ Ger te rheged"?!!!!!

Also, nice to see that in the age of digital music NW has still spent time and energy and money to create a beautiful leaflet to go with the music. Kinda uneventful: no surprises there but that's fine. I only wish I had a magnifying glass to watch the drawings closer. This time it's John Keating who's being quoted. And since DPP's quoted poet gets a song named after his work in this album, can we expect a DPS isnpired song in the next album? I wouldn't mind, it's one of my favourite movies, too. :)

One minus, though: the second page (= pages 3, 4 and 21, 22) of the leaflet are missing. No Crazy Dark Circus photo of Tuomas, thanks (I assume) are missing and of course the lyrics for songs 3 and four. Ah well, this album's been such a massive so it's probably been hell trying to keep track of all the numerous things taken to complete this one. Well, the lyrics can be found on NW's home pages, I only miss the visual material. Maybe the'll post the missing pages in their .com.

For now, sayonara.