Nightwish – Endless Forms Most Beautiful

Releasedate: 2015; Label: Nuclear Blast
By: Basak Günel

Symphonic metal legends Nightwish are back with the most anticipated record of the year, “Endless Forms Most Beautiful”! This record is the band’s eighth full-length album and the title of the album comes from Charles Darwin’s book “On the Origin of Species”.

The album is all about the beauty of life, existence, science and nature. So the overall theme of the album lies in the power of the reason. Although the album has a loose concept, it’s one of those albums that needs to be listened from the beginning to the end.

If a biologist like Richard Dawkins opens up the first song, then you will know that the album is really interesting. The album has a diverse sound overall; songs like “Shudder Before The Beautiful”, “Weak Fantasy”, “Yours is an Empty Hope” and “Alpenglow” show us that typical heavy Nightwish sound which features a ‘battle between keyboards and guitars’ as Tuomas Holopainen states so I am sure those that love the old Nightwish era will love these songs. In contrast to the heavier side of the record, the album also features a celtic/folkish song (“My Walden”), an instrumental piece which is about the children of war and is influenced by the Afghan girl in the National Geographic magazine (“The Eyes of Sharbat Gula”) and a ballad-like, slow song which is quite important for the band since it is a tribute to the parents of the bandmembers (“Our Decades in the Sun”). Surely, let’s not forget the last song, “The Greatest Show on Earth”; Mr. Holopainen states that all the other 10 songs can be thought as a prequel to this song as this 24-minute-long song forms the highlight of the record. Although I like the general concept of the album, the two songs “Élan” and “Edema Ruh” were the only ‘weak’ songs that did not really ‘punch me in the face’.

Apart from the musical beauty of the record, I have to say that this is the strongest line-up of the band so far and it feels like Nightwish is a team again after many line-up changes. I especially fell in love with Floor Jansen’s work once more and I gotta admit that I even expected more of her in this record. Furthermore, Kai Hahto (WINTERSUN), who had to fill in for Jukka Nevalainen due to Jukka’s insomnia problem, has brought that ever-energetic sound with his amazing drumming. I surely miss Jukka but we gotta admit that the drums in this record are just fantastic!

A lot more can be said about this record but I won’t spoil each song for you.. “Endless Forms Most Beautiful” is a masterpiece. Listen to it from the beginning to the end and get mesmerized by each song. Nightwish is back!

Line-up:
Floor Jansen – vocals
Tuomas Holopainen – keyboards
Marco Hietala – bass & vocals
Emppu Vuorinen – guitars
Jukka Nevalainen – drums, percussion (on hiatus since 2014)
Kai Hahto – drums (studio and live)
Troy Donockley – uilleann pipes, tin whistle, low whistle, bouzouki, bodhran, backing vocals

Tracklist: 01. Shudder Before The Beautiful 02. Weak Fantasy 03. Élan 04. Yours Is An Empty Hope 05. Our Decades In The Sun 06. My Walden 07. Endless Forms Most Beautiful 08. Edema Ruh 09. Alpenglow 10. The Eyes of Sharbat Gula 11. The Greatest Show on Earth

Links:
Nightwish Official