Nightwish...

[The Walrus]

 

Honestly I'm thinking this could be something kind of like Mike Oldfield's Ommadawn. At least, that's what I'm hoping. That's a 36-ish mostly instrumental piece (with vocals but they're not really lyrical, just ambient I think) with all kinds of sounds and styles and instruments, and from the title it seems that's what it could be.

[bosk1]

And here I thought I was the only person in the world who didn't swoon at Tuomas' "lyrical prowess."

[MirrorMask]

Honestly I'm thinking this could be something kind of like Mike Oldfield's Ommadawn. At least, that's what I'm hoping. That's a 36-ish mostly instrumental piece (with vocals but they're not really lyrical, just ambient I think) with all kinds of sounds and styles and instruments, and from the title it seems that's what it could be.

Well, I guess we could imagine The Greatest Show on Earth with just the intro and the ambient noises in the middle mixed with some more orchestral / atmospheric stuff I guess.

And I agree with bosk - I applaud the courage to do what the hell they want without thinking in terms of "We need another Nemo", but I'll also have to like the end result.

And here I thought I was the only person in the world who didn't swoon at Tuomas' "lyrical prowess."

So you didn't vividly picture him naked, with a smile in his face, a pen and 1000 pages of erased text?

[jingle.boy]

As much as I get that the length/time of the album COULD fit on 1 disc, I understand the reasoning of putting it on 2.  There's an album (brilliant I might add) by a band Transcend called The Mind (thanks RJ!)... and it's 83 minutes.  So while JUST over a single CD, it's packaged digitally as a single album (not sure if they sold it physically with some edits to make it under 80 minutes).  There's a 45-minute / 8-part suite after 4 opening tracks that are 39 minutes.  I rarely go to the album, because it feels like a chore to get thru the whole thing.

So, having the long multi-part suite (ala 6 Degrees) isn't necessarily a bad thing.

[Max Kuehnau]

As much as I get that the length/time of the album COULD fit on 1 disc, I understand the reasoning of putting it on 2.  There's an album (brilliant I might add) by a band Transcend called The Mind (thanks RJ!)... and it's 83 minutes.  So while JUST over a single CD, it's packaged digitally as a single album (not sure if they sold it physically with some edits to make it under 80 minutes).  There's a 45-minute / 8-part suite after 4 opening tracks that are 39 minutes.  I rarely go to the album, because it feels like a chore to get thru the whole thing.

So, having the long multi-part suite (ala 6 Degrees) isn't necessarily a bad thing.

I don't want to suggest otherwise (sorry if I seemingly did), I'm very excited about this album, seriously.

[bosk1]

And here I thought I was the only person in the world who didn't swoon at Tuomas' "lyrical prowess."

So you didn't vividly picture him naked, with a smile in his face, a pen and 1000 pages of erased text?

I have precious little time for such fantasizing.

...so when I do, I save it for picturing Adami. 

[The Curious Orange]

I took "wordless singing" to mean Floor is Great Gig In The Skying on this one. That'll do me.

[bosk1]

As much as I get that the length/time of the album COULD fit on 1 disc, I understand the reasoning of putting it on 2.  There's an album (brilliant I might add) by a band Transcend called The Mind (thanks RJ!)... and it's 83 minutes.  So while JUST over a single CD, it's packaged digitally as a single album (not sure if they sold it physically with some edits to make it under 80 minutes).  There's a 45-minute / 8-part suite after 4 opening tracks that are 39 minutes.  I rarely go to the album, because it feels like a chore to get thru the whole thing.

So, having the long multi-part suite (ala 6 Degrees) isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Yeah, you make a really good point.  I don't disagree with that at all.  It's just that, for me, I find it difficult to get past the format of such a huge portion of the album being something I probably won't have any desire to listen to after the first listen or two.  45 minutes of content that I actually would want to listen to seems meager in comparison.  Granted, there are a lot of albums where I maybe like only about 45 minutes worth, and the rest is just "filler" to me.  But it just feels like a bigger mental hurdle when a huge chunk of the content is supposed to be this huge centerpiece and focus of the album, and I don't care about it at all, ya' know?  I mean, I'm not trying to say that Tuomas should change how he chooses to express his artistic vision just because some fans may not like it--far from it!  I'm just say that, for me, this may not work.

[The Walrus]

And here I thought I was the only person in the world who didn't swoon at Tuomas' "lyrical prowess."

So you didn't vividly picture him naked, with a smile in his face, a pen and 1000 pages of erased text?

I have precious little time for such fantasizing.

...so when I do, I save it for picturing Adami. 

Me too, but it's Stadler in an I'm With Hillary shirt.

[ProfessorPeart]

I heard a rumor that the wordless singing in the epic is handled by none other than Geddy Lee doing his trademark yodel for 34 minutes. Can't wait!

 

[Max Kuehnau]

I heard a rumor that the wordless singing in the epic is handled by none other than Geddy Lee doing his trademark yodel for 34 minutes. Can't wait!

 

hehe good one, seriously. I'd love to have James and Geddy harmonise with Floor too

[Architeuthis]

What's this Geddy yodeling everyone keeps talking about?  Example please.

 If disc two of the new Nightwish album is all instrumental,  I wonder if it is Tuomas's way of punishing Floor for having too many side projects.   

[ErHaO]

Nemo in intimate form by Floor and Marcel Visser band (from that tv show a while back)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sXzVhCTTJ2c

Seeing that show tomorrow, looking forward to it. I hope she will record one of the concerts or does a studiosession with them. She will do intimate versions of songs spanning her career.

[MirrorMask]

Enjoy it, you lucky one!  I don't follow her to the point of knowing how she behaves in every single concert / intimate setting, but she gives me the idea of being a loveable and normal person, someone with whom you could have a casual chat while taking a coffee, and that happens to be an incredibly amazing singer. I think it's one of those cases where you walk way having enjoyed both the performance and the person.

[cramx3]

Yea, Floor comes off as a very nice person.  I've never met her, but she spreads positive vibes and is an amazing singer.

I've had Simone Simons as my favorite female vocalist for so long now, but the more of Floor I experience, the closer she gets to catching up and maybe passing Simone.

[MoraWintersoul]

And here I thought I was the only person in the world who didn't swoon at Tuomas' "lyrical prowess."

The man writes fantastic neologisms and his turns of phrase are, like, second to none. There's a thematic unity in his work that makes it so appealing to analyze. And I greatly respect the desire to just lay it all out there, and not give a rat's ass about appearing uncool - they have, what, three songs about liking fairy tales and Disney movies? and reddit.com/r/atheism lyrics post-2010? You gotta respect the guts in that

but there's too much of him in there and I just don't really like the guy 

[Ben_Jamin]

Floor is a very nice person. I saw her at this local pizza spot, she was with her dude. I askes if I could get a pic. She said yeah after she got done eating.

[The Curious Orange]

I know someone who met Tarja once, he said she was lovely.

Floor has that beautiful quality of being able to say something like "I am a great singer" and convey that she simply means it matter-of-factly, and she's not boasting or on an ego trip or something. It's a real European trait.

As for Tuomas' lyrics, well, I admire him for writing about different subjects and all, but the end result is often clumsy and clunky. I wouldn't call them neologisms so much as someone for whom English is a second language getting grammar and syntax wrong. I mean:

"At the end of the river the sun down beams
 All the relics of a life long lived
Here, weary traveller rest your wand
Sleep the journey from your eyes"

The sun down beams? What does that mean? The sun beams down? The sunset is beaming? It just sounds wrong to a natural English speaker. Not criticising in any way, his English is better than my Finnish, but I would never hold that up as an example of a great lyric, and Nightwish are full of this sort of clunky grammar.

I'm off to lie down and sleep the journey from my eyes...

[ariich]

"Sleep the journey from your eyes" is a wonderful line.

[cramx3]

I know someone who met Tarja once, he said she was lovely.

I met Tarja at Progpower 2018.  It was a very rare time where I suddenly became star struct, which is weird.  I was amazed by her beauty and her immediate eye contact and engagement.  I kind of just stood there with my ticket stub for her to sign and she just started laughing at my sudden quiet awkwardness and then I apologized and she laughed some more and cracked a joke.  Really lovely, not at all what I expected (not that I expected her to be mean or anything, just didn't think she would be THAT awesome in person especially at a meet and greet where she did that for like an hour, also she looked much more amazing in person). 

[The Walrus]

"Sleep the journey from your eyes" is a wonderful line.

I don't mind that one much. Sometimes European bands for whom English is their second language use some interesting turns of phrase. Sometimes they come out a mess, other times they sound poetic, like that.

[MirrorMask]

That line is so convoluted that, while I perfectly understand it, I don't even know where to begin to translate it in italian  we just don't have that kind of creative use for verbs. And probably neither the english language 

[MoraWintersoul]

Oh I would definitely pin some of that on the ESL factor, but not all, and especially not after the first few albums.

[Buddyhunter1]

Did his lyrics get considerably worse after Once or something? I feel like up to that point he wasn't exactly fantastic at writing lyrics but there wasn't anything that I found super cringe-worthy.

[Adami]

He has some really poetic stuff, some very meh stuff, and some WTF stuff.

The only lyrics of his that REALLY just turned me off were on EFMB (the album). Him describing evolution and science and "greet a blade of grass" or whatever just felt bad. Like when Iced Earth wrote wikipedia articles as lyrics for The Glorious Burden or whatever.

[MoraWintersoul]

I feel like the focus has shifted after Once, and so did the topics, which can be hit or miss for some people (obviously a miss for a lot of people in here).

Who's better at writing insults, Tuomas or Mike Portnoy? "Happy hunting, you double-faced carnivore" vs "You're the rotted root in the family tree"?  "Blame me, it's me, coward, a good-for-nothing scapegoat; dumb kid, living a dream, romantic only on paper" vs "They all bought into your contrived sincerity, and how you wore your heart and soul right on your sleeve; with false sensitivity, you cut yourself open so people would adore you" 

[cramx3]

I think this insult lyric takes the cake (it's neither of the two people above, but somewhat related to NW)

Your children will hate you forever
Your graces they faded so fast
You've fallen so far form what was your throne
Despised now wherever you go

 

[Adami]

I think this insult lyric takes the cake (it's neither of the two people above, but somewhat related to NW)

Your children will hate you forever
Your graces they faded so fast
You've fallen so far form what was your throne
Despised now wherever you go

 

Who is it?

[cramx3]

I think this insult lyric takes the cake (it's neither of the two people above, but somewhat related to NW)

Your children will hate you forever
Your graces they faded so fast
You've fallen so far form what was your throne
Despised now wherever you go

 

Who is it?

https://youtu.be/kpxBDnqWkYI?t=91

[MoraWintersoul]

Lol Jani Liimatainen is great at jabs too. "It is better to feel just something else than live in that uncertainty, so tell me now, how was he? and tell me, was he worth it?" always gets me and "No one is flawless but baby I'm the worst" always cracks me up 

[Ben_Jamin]

I know someone who met Tarja once, he said she was lovely.

I met Tarja at Progpower 2018.  It was a very rare time where I suddenly became star struct, which is weird.  I was amazed by her beauty and her immediate eye contact and engagement.  I kind of just stood there with my ticket stub for her to sign and she just started laughing at my sudden quiet awkwardness and then I apologized and she laughed some more and cracked a joke.  Really lovely, not at all what I expected (not that I expected her to be mean or anything, just didn't think she would be THAT awesome in person especially at a meet and greet where she did that for like an hour, also she looked much more amazing in person).

I remember that. I laughed too. I was behind you and just laughed in my head.

I still can't believe though. I met Tarja.

[cramx3]

Yea, looking back, that was really awesome and special.  Like, how cool was that? And that's all part of the progpower festival.  This is why I keep coming back.

[ErHaO]

Well, the Floor show at 013 was fantastic! Honestly one of my favourite concert experiences in recent memory. The variation of the repetoire was great and the performances were mostly stellar. Surprised they played quite a bit of metal here and there. And her stage banter was good too, this is usually not one of Nightwish's highlight, so that was a surprise to me.

Setlist: https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/floor-jansen/2020/poppodium-013-tilburg-netherlands-1b9891f4.html

My highlights probably were Face Your Demons (did not know the song, not thst familiar with After Forever) and Slow, Love, Slow.

[cramx3]

Slow love slow? that's a surprise, but pretty cool.  Actually got to see Annette play that in NYC

But that set as a whole is awesome, including the Northward songs.  That album really grew on me although I wish she played the song Northward, seems perfect for an overall less metal set

[kaos2900]

I REALLLLLLLY hope this is released some day.