Nightwish
Imaginaerum
Nuclear Blast

Like everything Nightwish have ever done, ‘Imaginaerum’ is utterly enormous. A sprawling, incredibly ambitious work, the Finnish collective’s seventh album could easily have gone awry in less skilled hands, but has finally emerged as a bombastic, absurdly cinematic treat. Just don’t try to take it all in at once…

Initially conceived by musical mastermind Tuomas Holpainen as the soundtrack to a series of short films, ‘Imaginaerum’ has since morphed into the kind of conceptual behemoth that’s Nightwish’s bread and butter, and it’s due to be followed by a full-length feature film. This band have long appreciated that the sublime and the ridiculous are anything but mutually exclusive and their latest record could well represent the creative apex of their careers, overflowing with ideas that most bands would dismiss as unfeasible but that are, in practice, undeniably compelling. Take a look, for example, at the Celtic-flavoured, pop-inflected ‘I Want My Tears Back’, likely the closest we’ll ever get to ‘Riverdance goes metal’, and the disturbingly catchy, theatrical ‘Ghost River’. This stuff shouldn’t work, but it really, really does.

The fact that you’ll need to keep an open mind when entering this new musical realm goes without saying. If you’re already a fan you’ll be buzzing off this one for months, and indeed, any doubts you may have harboured about Annette Olzon’s continuing ability to fill Tarja Turunen’s mighty big shoes should evaporate on first listen. With exceptional performances all round, and the tie-in movie still to come, Nightwish could very well own 2012 in the eyes of symphonic metal fans – and oh boy, we can’t wait to see what they have lined up for the live shows. Complete with orchestral arrangements from Pip Williams (Ringo Starr, The Kinks), beautiful cover art, and an almost unrivalled attention to detail, ‘Imaginaerum’ is undoubtedly the most interesting flight of fancy Nightwish have ever produced. Given their heritage, that’s saying a lot.

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Review by Rob Sayce