|
|
Dark Passion Play
|
|
|
|
|
|
Price: $12.57
Price subject to change!
|
|
To view Amazon.com's best price click on the above link. Please note that you are under no obligation to buy. If you decide to add your selection of "Dark Passion Play" to your Amazon shopping cart. You may then return to 80s Metal.com to shop for additional hard rock & metal music or continue shopping at Amazon.com.
|
|
|
Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0016861798420
Label: Roadrunner Records
Manufacturer: Roadrunner Records
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: Roadrunner Records
Release Date: 2007-10-02
Studio: Roadrunner Records
|
|
|
|
|
|
Spotlight customer reviews:
|
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Wow, this is brilliant
Comment: I was given this cd as a gift. Orginally, i only liked Amaranth, and then, i decided to give the other songs a try. I'll name a few of my favorites.
For an almost 14 miute long song, The Poet And The Pendulum was excellent! I put off listening to this one simply because it was so long. Now i know what i was missing.It's broken up into a few parts, but the parts fit together wonderfully, and the chorus links it all. The instruments and the vcals are just incredible
After that, there's Amaranth, which is a interesting song to say the least! Its not a god as my personal favorite, 7 Days to the wolves, but its still a good song
Eva, is simply beautiful, and sad. It breaks your heart.
For The Heart I Once Had-(may have the title confused) Another good one, something icould listen to over and over.
Bye Bye Beautiful-i can dance to this, i love the male vocals on this one.
7 Days to the Wolves- the male and female vocals together on this song are pretty cool. its a longer song(7 minutes) but the instrumental interlude is great.
A very excellent band, and a wonderful cd. i loved it.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Average for Nightwish is still better than everybody else.
Comment: Amaranth and Bye Bye Beautiful were the tracks that first turned me on to Nightwish, and I've since become a huge fan. After listening to their entire catalogue extensively, my conclusion is that this album includes some of their very best songs ever, unfortunately sandwiched in between some of their very worst.
First, the bad: Master Passion Greed is horrible- a mindless, unsophisticated, slogging number that doesn't serve this band's talent or personality well at all. Cadence of Her Last Breath, Whoever Brings the Night, For the Heart I Once Had, Meadows of Heaven and Sahara are all just average and somewhat boring. Sahara has a killer intro with that magical energy we're used to from Nightwish, but suddenly slows down and becomes an entirely different, uninteresting track.
The remaining songs illustrate the direction in which Nightwish should continue to move, in my opinion: The Poet and the Pendulum, though 13 minutes long, is incredibly dramatic and energetic and stacks up well against their other epics (Beauty of the Beast, Ghost Love Score, etc). Amaranth and Bye Bye Beautiful, the most accessible tracks, are both solid and enjoyable- good ones to use when introducing people to the band. Eva is a pretty ballad and Anette demonstrates her ability to invoke a lot of emotion through her vocals. The Islander and Seven Days to the Wolves are owned by Marco- his contribution to Nightwish's sound is huge. And finally, Last of the Wilds continues to blow me away- who else could combine pipes and a tin whistle with a metal foundation so effectively? Absolutely unique and one I always play for people who don't know Nightwish.
I know record companies do odd things, but for the life of me I can't figure out why the song "Escapist" wasn't included on this CD. It reminds me of Dark Chest of Wonders but completely belongs to Anette, and combines the metal and symphonic elements with that magical Nightwish energy. Awesome track!
Mr. Holopainen is a musical genius and I can't wait to hear what he does with their next album, when he'll be writing the songs specifically for Anette to sing. Tarja was amazing, but this is a new chapter and Tuomas is clearly the driving force behind the band's success. I have no doubt that the next Nightwish album will continue to push the symphonic metal envelop in new and exciting directions.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Successful "this is the new signer" album
Comment: Apart from Sabbath's Ozzy > Dio shift, I'm hard pressed to remember about change of vocalists within a band that has caused so much ruckus. However, as with that situation, there is considerably more to Nightwish than the singer -- and mostly that's keyboardist Tuomas Holopainen, who composes virtually all the music. Whoever is singing, this is clearly Tuomas's band and music. Whether this is his finest hour yet is, perhaps, debatable ... but if you want symphonic metal glory (if you don't, why are you reading Nightwish reviews? ;)) then there're no unleaspant changes in store on that front. After all, what more can we ask for an album opener than a 14-minute ueber-indulgent workout that must have left more than a few members of the supporint London Symphony Orchestra mopping their brows -- or at least reaching for their ear plugs? Then, on the other side of things, the first single "Amaranth" is wickedly catchy. What's not to like? (Well, apart from the subtle-as-a-reindeer-trampling "this is about firing Tarja" lyrics on a few tracks ....)
Of course, what everyone want to know about on this album is "How's the new singer?". For my part, though I don't think Annete Olzon has anything like Tarja Turunen unquestionably impressive pipes ... I think I actually like the band better with her. (There: I've just enraged millions of already wrathful Tarja fans!). No, but seriously -- with past Nightwish albums, I often felt my fairly high tolerance for outrageous bombast was being seriously strained by Tarja's self-consciously operatic vocals after a few songs. IMO, Olzon's admittedly more conventional rock/pop style gets me a lot farther before I need to have a lie down and listen to some Motorhead to restore my equilibrium.
So: I think this album successfully maneuvers Nightwish into their "new singer era". The music and playing are solidly good, I think they may the right choice in picking a different kind of singer going forward, and lest we all forget the rest of the band (as plenty of people seem to do), I think the addition of bassist Marco Hietala a few albums back is continuing to pay dividends (besides his "spirit of metal" sensibilities, he pens the excellently folky "The Islander" here). Anyway, they've certainly got my attention for the future. Bring it on!
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Nightwish without Tarja!? Oh well!
Comment: To listen to each of Nightwish's albums in sequential album is to notice a band that manages to grow heavier more and epic with each album, finally ending in "Once" where the album wouldn't have been out of place in movies like "Lord of the Rings". "Once" was of course the last album before the band had a "falling out" with Tarja, their lead singer. While the band never truly went into much detail, it is my suspicion that as the band grew with each album, Tarja became more and more displeased with the direction the band was heading. I suspect that this album is what Nightwish would've sounded like (minus the vocals- obviously) had Tarja not any say in the band's music. That's just my observation, and maybe its completely wrong.
Dark Passion Play is certainly an epic metal masterpiece with heavy guitars, melodic keyboards, choruses, multiple vocalists, and everything in between. After listening to the opener "The Poet and the Pendulum" you will have a good idea of what is in store for you in the rest of the album. One would also notice that the new vocalist, Anette, isn't quite the powerful vocal goddess that Tarja was...but her voice fits the music. Perfectly. Don't get me wrong, she is still an amazing singer, but not in the same operatic style as Tarja. The 2nd song is pointed squarely at the previous vocalist...and it's a very heavy song with some rather angry choruses. Hmm. Next up track 3 is probably the best example so far of how Anette's vocals are so....catchy. They mesh with the music so well! And track 5 is Nightwish's heaviest song to date. The chorus is EPIC and so very addictive too. Just on the laurels of the band's heaviest song yet comes the obligatory ballad! This was the single that the band released prior the release of the album in an effort to try to show that Anette was indeed a worthy successor to Tarj. Those are big shoes to fill, and the song probably turned many fans off to the album. Personally, I find it a very beautiful song, and many grogtard Tarja nay-sayers condemnded the album on this song alone. The album continues its flawless streak of divine songs all the way until another ballad-esque song at track 10. Ballad may not be entirely appropriate though. Annette isn't heard as much on this track, but that's okay! Here the Nightwish bassist takes the work-load here, and helms a song with some very strong Irish influences. The Irish influence continues into track 11; which is quite possibly my favorite song on the album. It is an instrumental full of violins and bag-pipes playing alongside the signature epic Nightwish sound. Track 12 is the last heavy song on the album, and its a duzy. It has an epic, addictive chorus...but by this point in the album that's nothing new. There is an interesting breakdown later in the song that is a continuation of the first track. The album ends in a semi-heavy-but-still epic ballad that again flaunts Anette's skills...almost to reassure us that Nightwish is here to stay, with or without Tarja.
To sum up this album in one word would be cruel, but if anything, it would be EPIC. Nightwish may not be very well known in America, but americans typically have crappy taste in music anyways. There's a reason Nightwish is probably the biggest metal band in the world right now. If you haven't heard of these guys, you need to. Now.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Comment: People should just get over the fact that they fired Tarja and move on. They didn't want another operatic singer and I respect that. Olzon has an excellent voice and I love what she's done on "Dark Passion Play". Nightwish are in fine form here. Every song is an experience and Olzon draws me in with every one. I love this album and I'm sure if people get past the "she'll never be Tarja" complex then they'd enjoy the album a whole lot more. I love Tarja's voice as much as the next Nightwish fan but accept that it's a new time for the band. If you just don't like what the bend has done here that's fine but this brilliance shouldn't be denied because of an affinity for Tarja. This album gets the full 5 stars from me.
|
|
|
Editorial Reviews:
|
Although it is their sixth studio album,Dark Passion Play marks the beginning of a new era for Finnish symphonic metal masters Nightwish. With new vocalist Annette Olzon onboard, Nightwish returns with their most accessible material to date. Firmly rooted in their trademark symphonic sounds featuring elaborate keyboard and guitar parts blended seamlessly with intricate string and choir sections, Olzon’s vocals have more pop sensibility as they are far less operatic than those of her predecessor. This is perfectly exemplified in the vocal melodies in Amaranth, Eva and the scorching duet with bassist Marco Hietala titled Bye Bye Beautiful. Nightwish mastermind Tuomas Holopainen (keyboards) not only wrote all the lyrics and all but two songs on the album, but also helmed the project as one of the producers along with T.C. Kinnunen and Mikko Karmila, who also mixed the album. Dark Passion Play has already made history as Finland’s most expensive recording project to date with massive string sections and choirs and it is clearly evident in the impeccable production. Nightwish have taken the symphonic elements of their prior works and infused them with a new voice to create a sound representative of the album title: dark, playful and, most of all, passionate.
|
|
|
Shop Worry Free
|
|
Shopping for discount hard rock & metal music is worry free at 80s Metal.com! You won't find any popups, popunders, spyware or adware on our shopping site. We collect no personal information and your selection of "Dark Passion Play" will be checked out on Amazon's secure servers!
|
|
|
Thankyou!
|
Thanks for shopping at 80s Metal.com! I hope you found your visit worthwhile!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
