Nightwish - Endless Forms Most Beautiful

Published March 29 2015

*=Staff's pick	Shudder Before The Beautiful* Weak Fantasy Élan* Yours Is An Empty Hole Our Decades In The Sun My Walden Endless Forms Most Beautiful Edema Ruh Alpenglow* The Eyes Of Sharbat Gula The Greatest Show On Earth

Genre	Symphonic Rock/Metal	Floor Jansen/M. Hietala	Vocals
Tracks	11	Emppu Vuorinen	Guitar
Running time	79 Min.	-	Guitar
Label	Nuclear Blast	Marco Hietala	Bass
Release	March 27, 2015	Kai Hahto	Drums
Country	Finland	Tuomas Holopainen	Keyboard
Producer	Tuomas Holopainen	Troy Donockley	Pipes
Similar artists	---

The Finland based symphonic rockers Nightwish, with their main man Tuomas Holopainen, continue to distance themselves a little further from what the band initially came out like earlier in its career, although many bits and pieces are tough to wash away and will naturally never completely disappear from the performance. It's indeed more pop-oriented at this point and the band has also intertwined a rather large quantity of folk music into the artistic conception.

This record quite a bit follows the footsteps of the two releases with former vocalist Anette Olzon, even if lots of the material comes out as new experiences. New vocalist Floor Jansen manages to deliver validity in the end and she does the job roughly as good as Anette did, although their voices come out differently in many aspects. The songs definitely have a more melodic approach and a less attacking expression, than what they had during original vocalist Tarja Turunen's time with the band, and I think that Floor absolutely will make friends with fans of the latest records by Nightwish.

It's an immensely expansive release ending at 79 minutes and with that amount of playing time, there are of course strong variations in the total outcome and it becomes a little too monumental and complicated with too much drama involved to suit the really carefully arranged and detailed concept. It's really a well-conceived record, but its grandeur is also partially its demise as well, because many parts are inevitably too tedious and very much drawn-out.

The album's real and only issue is actually that the song's overall capacity can't stand up to the total production. Although often including some great and attacking stuff, they aren't accurate and precise enough all the way from start to finish. There's really too much effort put into the idea of the album and also to bring out catchy choruses, which makes it seem like all the other work put together is a bit in vain.

If you enjoy highly majestic and grandiose appearances, captivating choruses that appear a little overdone, long intermissions to fixate the end result into a concept, as well as attacking and modern metal rhythms to complete the experience, then you will probably love Nightwish's new effort. Personally I don't think that it's able to stand up strong to its two predecessors, Imaginaerum and Dark Passion Play, since the capacity of the full songs can't elevate me into a certain rocking mode and I believe that this project called Endless Forms Most Beautiful more looks like a work for the composer's ears than a work for the listener. Is it bad? No, not at all, but not just as good as one could wish for.

See also review of: Imaginaerum , Dark Passion Play , Once , Made In Hong Kong , Century Child , End Of An Era , Ever Dream

Performance	Originality	Production	Vocals	Songwriting
8	7	8	7	5

Summary
6 chalices of 10 - Tobbe