Some summer parties / Review of Nightwish - Dark Passion Play

Birthday party for Marcos and Yoni



Churrascadaaa!!

Yeh, one of the things I missed in Estonia :P




This is the pub of one friend, he opened it only for us.






Nice under(?)wear

I like the way of looking of Marcos' girlfriend just behind me meanwhile he is dancing some humppaaaa!
Don't you know what is humppa?Check it!



Dark reflection



Queimada de Cervo'07



I think I haven't introduced my skirt partners, from left to right: Marcos, Simon, me
Another party of "queimada" (more or less translated like "burnt", strong hmm liquor that has to be burnt first before drinking because it's so strong.. ). You buy the cup (3 or 4 €, it depends on the party) and you have unlimited cups of this liquor until it ends.
We have a lot of this parties in different places around where I live. Again with those gothic-trollish skirts :D, and some poses hehe






Revoltallo'07

Bands: Agonica, Kathaarsys, Suidakra, Hecate Enthroned


We came to this extreme metal music festival.. again with skirts.. and I started to be used to go with them hahah
People were looking at our looking and they were surprised and laughing when we were making all those poses, nonsenses and crazy things. Like this pic, look at the people behind! XDDD
Oh! Marcos has fallen in battle!!!
But always with the beer up! XDD

Really dark and pagan pic!

Carrying the stone of sacrifices

Another take of our battlecharge


True posers


In the concert of Suidakra, the main band we wanted to see, the singer (and guitarist) came to to public hehe






Hecate Enthroned, a lot of noise! Bad sound and I didnt like too much the last stuff from them, I prefer when they played that melodic black similar to old Cradle (though couldnt stand too much that voice :S)

In the backstage with Suidakra

Funny anecdote: meanwhile Suidakra were launching some plectrums to us, Marcos got one of those sticked to his shoulder and he didn't realize until we told him "hey! you have some bug near your head!"


Gallaecian Metal Fest








One of the best spanish bands: Fallen Sentinel, as the heads one day of this 2-days festival

Medieval party in my hometown















Queimada popular da Maruxaina











I like those white sockers, don't you? XDD




















Who said with underwear it's more comfortable???

Review of Nightwish - Dark Passion Play



Here we have the new Nightwish album. There was such a high expectation about the new singer, about some changes in the sound with the leaving of Tarja…
And here you will read my impressions about it.
First I have to say that I am a devoted Nightwish fan since 1998 when they launched that amazing Oceanborn, so innovative and fresh as no one till that. The previous one, “Angels fall first” was quite boring and the less important and even bad in the Nightwish discography. The big step was with Oceanborn, and until now they were growing and growing as band and improving the quality of sound and keeping a good compositive level. Also the number of fans was growing a lot with the pass of the years. The incorporation of Marco Hietala was a good hit. His voice is powerful and connected with the Nightwish sound and Tarja perfectly.
So after such a great success in the last years (even in Spain people now can say: “I like “Heavy Metal”: Iron Maiden, Metallica, AC/DC, Marilyn Manson, Korn and Nightwish” (though all them are so different and from different styles than “heavy metal”…). That’s a big success, believe me”). We all wanted anxiously to listen the new album this time with Tarja out of the band, and the new voice of Anette.
First of all, the new voice of Anette is great, but (there is always one but) she is not Tarja. The voice of Tarja became part of the “Nightwish sound”. Her voice was too linked. From the beginning Tuomas wanted to say that he wasn’t searching one second Tarja. That is good and bad at the same time. Anette sings really good and it mixes with the sound of the album quite well, but meanwhile I was listening to it, I was thinking that this is not the Nightwish of always. This is more … (sorry for telling that, but it came somehow to my mind) commercial oriented…
In another global vision of the album we see the really long duration of this; more than 75 min. is quite a lot under my point of view. Moreover I noticed some more things:
Where are the solos of Emppu? I could find very few in the whole album, and not so long…
Where is the double pedal of Jukka? He seems to play half speed of he was doing until now in most of the songs, always with mid-tempo.
Anyway this album maybe has the best orchestral arrangements in the whole history of Nightwish. They know how to do it and to mix it with the electric guitars and the sound of Metal (not like Metallica). They are simply amazing. The choirs and orchestra sound absolutly pompous, boombastic and enormous. Moreover there are a lot of little orchestral details in the background almost in every song that make everytime you are listening some songs to enjoy them again. People who like pop music I guess they cannot find it enjoyable, but for a lot of “Metal people” this is something really valious.

This is already the fourth time I listen to this album, I didn’t want to comment with only one or two times and I will write my thoughts meanwhile I will listen again to “Dark passion play”. So here I go song by song:

01 – The poet and the pendulum
More than 13 minutes for the first song, and what a song!!
Orchestral arrangements are amazing, very “soundtrack” influenced, and variety in the whole song is the predominance. Great beginning but after that we begin to noticed the, each time more and more “Suomi Metal” sound in things like after a great and pompous 2 first minutes,we find the same that bands like Him, Rasmus, and other finnish and now even more international rock-metal “commercials” are doing often: they stop suddenly all, and the voice is starting with only bass and drums. This method of starting is not bad itself, but I am starting to get tired and guess and predict how the song will go on. I prefer to be surprised and this is happening after, and it’s what remained in my head after listening the whole song: amazing changes in the middle and end of the song that made me enjoy it once and again. Without doubts this song is one of the best things of the cd. This kind of songs are the ones that when you finish to listen them, you are thinking… “yeh! This is music!”

02 – Bye bye beautiful
Good beginning, but again the same “suomi-style” when the singer is starting after some good guitars and electronic keyboards: voice, bass and drums. The style is predicting the rest of the album. More or less catchy (some would say commercial) chorus and refrain and not so much melody in guitars as they did in previous albums. This is something that I missed, the guitars of Emmpu are too low, and with not so much melody. He seems that he wasn’t using higher notes than from the 3rd fret of the guitar to higher notes.

03 – Amaranth
The second single!
Well, maybe the fans of bands like Evanescence and overall Within Temptation and this kind of “electric guitars Pop” would enjoy this song more than the others who are listening the whole career of Nightwish. They were coming to this kind of songs like that “tecno-power-metal” song called “I wish I had and angel”. I have to say that after 2 or 3 times listening this song I had the chorus easily in my mind, but I guess, like all that Pop-metal, this will remain few time more and then it will be tiring to listen and easily forgotten. Again… “melody in guitars?” .

04 – Cadence of her last breath
The beginning of the electric guitars sound more like Korn than the Nightwish we are used to… This is not good… Again the suomi-style of voice-bass-drums, and again some catchy vocal melody and few more. I’m starting to think that Tuomas should give more freedom to Emmpu. But at least this song has one “little” guitar solo!

05 – Master Passion Greed
Again, cha-chan-cha-chan-cha-chan in the guitars. No high notes at all. This is already done in the last album “Once” but not so a lot as in this, and I remembered here songs like “Stargazers”, “Sacrament of wilderness”, “Wishmaster” (Hamster! A dentist! Hard Porn! Steven Seagull!), “Kinslayer” and so on so on… when the guitars did more than mutes and even they had melodies and riffs. At least we noticed that Jukka has double pedal and he still can move his hands fast. Anyway this song is getting better when we are listening more and more and even Emppu is doing one riff like those we liked in the central part of the song! Great Marco.

06 – Eva
The first and disappointing first single of the “Anette era”.
I think I told already my impressions about this song before. Boring, too pop-slow, I have listened better ballads to Within Temptation (and this is not a flatter to Within!), if I have to choose. But not as I have listened to one friend, this song even Tarja cannot save it from the feeble-minded and tasteless.

07 – Sahara
Mid-tempo and good song. The part in the middle of the song with that arabic ambient in the orchestration is quite good as the ending. It won’t remain as one of the classics of Nightwish, but it’s one of the best songs of Dark Passion Play.

08 – Whoever brings the night
Not bad song looking the average of the album. Low guitar riffs, good and epic orchestrations that are getting better at the mid-end of the song, and catchy refrain, as the main music of this cd but in this point of the album I have the feeling that no one less the first song would be remembered as one of the great Nightwish songs.

09 – For the heart I once had
Listening only the first second of this song I had the temptation of skip inmediately to the next one. But this is Nightwish and I have to give the chance to them. It’s a pity, but they didn’t get that first feeling out of my mind. This is a bad song, too bad, and now that I am listening to it I’m wishing to pass to the next. One of the worst songs I have ever listen of Nightwish united with those ballads with Tarja singing in finnish like that boring “Kuolema Tekee Taiteilijan”.

10 – The islander
One of the big success of this album with the next and the first song. Folk (Irish influenced) song and I recalled one band that I use to like a lot like Wolfstone. A good and enjoyable time for breathing after those low riffed epic-orchestral-pop-metal songs in the half of the cd. Who is singing this song? His voice is not Marco’s, I’m almost sure.

11 – Last of the wilds
It could be the continuation of the previous song. The folk is in the air, and it fits with perfection with the electric guitars doing of these 2 songs the best part of the whole album for me. I really enjoyed this instrumental song with folk elements, recalling me a elaborated folkish metal song as they did long time ago with that song “moondance” of the Oceanborn album or “Lappi” in the first one. But this is even better, longer, catchy, with variety, solo!! (not very long…). I don’t want to be heavy with the solos, in fact I don’t like bands that put guitar solos in every song, only “because it is needed to have a solo just before the final chorus”. But I really liked always the solos of Nightwish, Emppu is a great guitarist and I have the sensation that he is underestimated and almost not used in this album. He could do better things than what I am listening for sure. He did it before, why not now?

12 – 7 days of the wolves
This would be a good song for ending the cd. Again the cha-chan-cha-chan cha cha chan of the guitars at the beginning, and I ended a bit tired of that. Nice (and too short) violin part in the middle of the song and good change of rhythm. Boombastic and great epic ending. Another solo of guitar! And I counted that maybe if I put all the solos of the 75 minutes of the album together maybe I can get 2 minutes. People who doesn’t like metal can notice that I talk about a lot about this, but I think this is a little sign of “commerciality”. Electric guitar solos are not anymore commercial, and young fans of bands like the mentioned Evanescence and Within Temptation prefer catchy moments than virtuosism. I am not meaning that Nightwish are becoming as those bands, this band has still a lot of more inspiration, originality and better compositions than those, but they went with this album and this new voice to try to conquer new kind of fans and to be more widely known between the fans of that tendence of new-gothic-pop-metal, as other bands like Sirenia, Epica, or even After Forever (but the new album is great!) are doing in the last years. This is not itself bad, but that’s coming bad when the compositions are becoming poorer and poorer. One of the best examples is Sirenia, with such a lot good first material and one last album so awful and intrascendent.

13 – Meadows of heaven
As I said in the previous song, that would be a good ending for the album, cause this song made me something that I didn’t like at all. It made me a bad impression of the album everytime when I finish to listen it. Too slow and boring, like Eva, but longer, and everytime I am listening it I wish to finish it when I arrive to the 3rd of 4th minute of the long long 7 minutes of the song. The only good thing I can say about it is the folk touch of the use of flute and bagpipe, but not enough to say that I liked the song.
It could be much better if they finished it with “7 days to the wolves”, definitely. And I really hate the way they ended this album. The last part of “meadows of heaven” with those screams of black-voice like a song of an american black pop-star girl “uuuuuhhh yeeeeeh come on come on ooooouuuooouuhhhyeeeehh aaaaaaaaaaaauuujaaajajaaaaa” doesn’t fit at all.

Result: irregular album, too long, it could be much better without some songs like this last, “Meadows of heaven”, the boring “Eva” or the worst song of the album “For the heart I once had”(I guess the worst song I have ever listened to Nightwish). Too low guitar riffs and very few melody in this instrument. To have a powerful guitar doesn’t mean to be “more powerful Metal” for me. The main melodies are guided by the voice and orchestral arrangements, that are absolutly great, very “soundtrack” influenced as the male-female group chorus and also I liked the treatment of the voice of Anette when they double it.
I can’t say that this is a bad album, but as fan of Nightwish I expected more (maybe I am asking too much and I am too critic, but I argumented my reasons to think as I think).
My final grade for it is:
6/10

This year there are better albums to listen than this, like Therion with their amazing mix of styles, Arch Enemy or Dark Tranquillity in Melodic Death Metal, Nocturnal Rites in Power Metal, Susperia in Thrash Metal, Samael in Industrial Metal, Nile or Behemoth in Death Metal, Lake of Tears in Psychodelic Rock, Gotthard in Hard Rock, Dalriada in Folk Metal, Soulgrind or After Forever in Gothic Metal, Paradise Lost in Doom-Dark-Rock, Amorphis in that called “Suomi Metal”, Rotting Christ in Black Metal or Turisas or Ensiferum in Viking Metal (pity of the last album of Finntroll, I expected much more).

Thanks for reading, what about your impressions?

PS: spanish people don't be lazy only because it's english!!
Write something as before! :D


Amaranth video:
http://rs166.rapidshare.com/files/48352975/n-a-07.rar