Nightwish: Wishmaster (2000)

Ah, this takes me back.  In my college days I was kind of obsessed with highly melodic bands with female lead singers.  It started with Evanescence, who my girlfriend at the time really liked, and then built into groups like Tristania, Leaves' Eyes, Within Temptation and Lacuna Coil.  Of course the most famous band fitting that description is Nightwish, who was a particular favorite.  These were in the days when Tarja Tarunen was still the singer.  I had a couple of the band's albums but then grew out of the phase and have only occasionally revisited those albums.

Recently I decided to revisit one of Nightwish's earlier albums because I heard a couple of songs kind of randomly and remembered how much I once enjoyed the band.  Nightwish always stuck out from the legion of similar bands.  For one thing, there was the beautiful, operatic vocals of Tarunen, someone who is clearly well-trained.  This influence was particularly obvious on Century Child's cover of "Phantom of the Opera".  Secondly, there is the music.  Nightwish is quite plainly a power metal band, one with significant symphonic influences, but it is not hard to imagine a group like Sonata Arctica playing the same type of music.  Most of the other bands have generally had a much more mainstream sound, almost rock, instead of the clear power metal sound of Nightwish. 

Wishmaster is one of Nightwish's most highly-regarded albums and was a pretty good bet for the one I would check out if I wanted to rediscover the band.  The album actually pre-dates everything I have heard from them.  That being said, it is still the band's third album and their sound was fully-formed.  The music here is generally fast-paced power metal that would fit in well on an album by any European power metal band.  It is melodic and bombastic with some impressive riffing, terrific solos and a lot of keyboard melodies.  Generally, the music is even better on this release than on their subsequent ones, most likely due to the fact that the band was still pretty far from hitting any sort of mainstream popularity which resulted in a streamlining of their sound.  Songs like "She is My Sin" and the title track are pretty much guaranteed to get stuck in the head.  Then, there's "Crownless", and holy hell this is an amazing track.  With lightning-fast keyboard melodies and riffs, this song stands out as one of the band's best songs of their career, much less just this album.

Of course no discussion of Nightwish would be complete without discussing the vocals.  Tarunen has an amazing voice with a multiple octave range and is able to do some truly impressive vocal gymnastics.  She can easily go from a whisper to a high-pitched howl in the very next note.  She is terrific on this release.

I really think this album has supplanted Century Child as my favorite Nightwish album.  Does that mean I am going to get back into this band?  Probably not to the same degree.  I do appreciate their ability to play true power metal better than most bands who hopped on the bandwagon of placing a beautiful woman in front of the mic to make some money, but this is still music I really have to be in the mood for.  But just maybe that mood will strike me a little more often.