Band:	Tarja
Album:	What Lies Beneath
Style:	Symphonic metal
Release date:	August 31, 2010
A review by:	KwonVerge

Disc I [US version]
01. Anteroom Of Death [feat. Van Canto]
02. Until My Last Breath
03. Dark Star [feat. Phil Labonte]
04. Underneath
05. Little Lies
06. Rivers Of Lust
07. In For A Kill
08. Montañas de Silencio [exclusive U.S. track]
09. Falling Awake [feat. Joe Satriani]
10. The Archive Of Lost Dreams
11. Crimson Deep [feat. Will Calhoun]

Disc I [international version]
01. Anteroom Of Death [feat. Van Canto]
02. Until My Last Breath
03. I Feel Immortal [exclusive international track]
04. In For A Kill
05. Underneath
06. Little Lies
07. Rivers Of Lust
08. Dark Star [feat. Phil Labonte]
09. Falling Awake [feat. Joe Satriani]
10. The Archive Of Lost Dreams
11. Crimson Deep [feat. Will Calhoun]

Disc II [Limited Deluxe Edition Bonus Disc]
01. We Are
02. Naiad
03. Still Of The Night
+ Tarja Speaks About "What Lies Beneath" [video]

Tarja Turunen requires no special introductions, even people outside the metal scene know her, so I will proceed to what I'm here for, review her latest effort, What Lies Beneath. To be honest, I was wondering the same thing as the title, hoping it will be something very good, judging from the fact Tarja holds all artistic freedom within her hands since her Nightwish sunset.

Everybody knows what a fabulous interpreter Tarja is, her operatic lines are highly expressive, enriching any fragile emotion with her aura and for one more time she stands behind the microphone with passion and honesty, breathing life to the words that consist of the lyrics. Could this be enough? Well, no, otherwise every gifted vocalist would sing a capella without the ensemble of musical background. Music is like an entertainment airplane, if it's decent, a trained pilot will succeed in his goals in order to please the crowd. The difference between a trained and a mature, high class pilot is that the second one won't just please the crowds, he will make them scream their lungs out of happiness. They have something in common though, no matter how talented they are, if the airplane has major problems, the pilot goes down with it. The same applies for the music body of a band and the singer, no matter how good the singer might be, if the music doesn't have this something that will help the singer make it reach stratospheric amounts of highness, it will remain grounded the least. If it won't crash.

Well, concerning Tarja's situation, the plane crashed, she had the chance though to hit the eject button and the parachute managed to save her. In that case, there are songs that have something to say, but most of them set sail on the vast waters of mediocrity and not even her voice can make the sea awaken with waves of inspiration. The main character of What Lies Beneath is the simplistic yet symphonic/atmospheric one and Tarja's operatic vocal lines and then according to the more specific music structure the songs are metal-driven compositions, rock-oriented ones or just acoustic pieces. Some of them that caught my attention have to be "Until My Last Breath", "In For A Kill", "I Feel Immortal", "Rivers Of Lust", "Fall Awake" with Joe Satriani trying to prevent the crash from the communication tower with some interesting solo instructions and "The Archive Of Lost Dreams". The problem is that Tarja's personal work sounds almost like second league Nightwish, with this meaning that we've heard Tarja before in such compositions which were more emotional, diverse, complex and of course, they complimented her voice even more.

What Lies Beneath might be a pleasing and fair enough offering for the common listener of generic symphonic metal with characteristic voice and probably it has something more to say to the Tarja-obsessed audience, yet, all I know is that Tuomas Holopainen's compositions scream for Tarja Turunen behind the microphone and Tarja's compositions are not enough for her vocal abilities.

The most generous rating i could give:

2.5 + 4 + 3.5 + 3.5 + 3 + 3 + 3 +3 + 3.5 + 3 + 3 = 34.5/11 = 3.13 to 5 = 6.26 to 10.

9 + 6 + 7 + 9 = 31/4 = 7.75

6.26 + 7.75 = 14.01/2 = 7.005 = 7.