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Nightwish - Century Child



8.5 | 1207 votes |
Release date: 25 May 2002
Style: Symphonic power metal

Owners:

1426 have it
57 want it
3 trade it


01. Bless The Child
02. End Of All Hope
03. Dead To The World
04. Ever Dream
05. Slaying The Dreamer
06. Forever Yours
07. Ocean Soul
08. Feel For You
09. Phantom Of The Opera
10. Beauty Of The Beast
    1 - Long Lost Love
    2 - One More Night To Live
    3 - Christabel
11. The Wayfarer [bonus]
12. Lagoon [bonus]
13. Bless The Child [edit] [2007 Spinefarm re-release bonus]
14. End Of All Hope [live] [2007 Spinefarm re-release bonus]
15. Dead To The World [live] [2007 Spinefarm re-release bonus]

Top 20 albums of 2002: 19

Additional info
Produced by T. Holopainen & TeeCee Kinnunen. Co-produced by Nightwish.
Recorded by Tero Kinnunen at Caverock and Mikko Karmila at Finnvox between January and March 2002.
Mixed by Mikko Karmila at Finnvox in April 2002.
Mastered by Mikko Jussila at Finnvox.

Cover artwork by Markus Mayer.

Guest review by
ChainOfSorrow
Rating:
9.0
It's really difficult, if not impossible for my not so great musical maturity, to choose a best Nightwish album, and it's also thankless to do so in my opinion. But... if the world depended on a straightforward answer to the question "Which is your favourite Nightwish album?" I would probably have to say Century Child is that album. Century Child is definitely a departure from Nightwish's original power metal roots. (Despite what people say about the "new era" that Anette brought with her to the sound of Nightwish, that new era was born in Century Child; Dark Passion Play doesn't differ that much in sound from Once for example; only the change of vocalist obviously makes the difference, but the vocal lines written for the album are not that distant from what the band had been doing since 2002 when the band gradually started distancing itself from that operatic vocal register that became a sort of stamp the band had almost become forced to live with.)

Read more ››
published 13.12.2011 | Comments (16)

Guest review by
marco
Rating:
7.5
So here it is, the long awaited sequel to Wishmaster and it delivers the same power package but is it really something new? The clear answer is no because all the songs that Century Child delivers are already done on Oceanborn and Wishmaster. When you have an angel then you definetely need a Devil . The best aspect is that Nightwish's bass player Marco Hietala sings on this album.

Read more ››
published 11.09.2003 | Comments (14)

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Comments

Comments: 23   Visited by: 1196 users
13.02.2011 - 03:12
Rating: 10
nighowl
THE BEST NIGHTWISH ALBUM EVER.
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13.02.2011 - 22:05
ErnilEnNaur
Account deleted
The best thing about Century Child was Marco. The music sounded a bit tired to me and Forever Yours might very well be the most boring song Tuomas has ever written. But this album's also got some great tracks like The Beauty Of The Beast and Ever Dream. A rather commercial album compared to the three that came before, but a good one still.
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16.07.2011 - 09:43
Rating: 10
hellsmiles
This album marked their transformation between "Old" and "New" Nightwish. Not Tarja's departure.

Nightwish were already moving away from the Power Metal genre years before Anette joined the band. I am so sick of people accusing her of ruining the band. I honestly enjoy Tarja's delivery of vocals better than Anette's, but the world doesn't need to trash Anette.
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16.09.2011 - 01:21
Rating: 8
musicalkaratekid
Good album,but not their best...
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08.12.2011 - 19:49
Rating: 10
"Oceanorn" is a really mindblowing masterpiece, and its follower "Wishmaster" just quite as good. "Once" is also a really great album, that differs already too much from Nightwish's original routes but in a really good way ("Once" is actually an album I didn't quite get some time ago, but it just grew inside me and I came to love it just as much as all the others). I also love "Dark Passion Play", even if Anette's vocals are not as good as Tarja's she did a wonderful and corageous job in this album and Tuomas exceeded himself in the lyric writing department with "The Poet and the Pendulum"... My feelings towards "Dark Passion Play" are really hard to explain, I don't love it as much as I do love its predecessors (with the exception of "Angels Fall First") but there's something about this album that overwhelms me as well. Actually "Once" and "Dark Passion Play" are probably the most difficult albums for me to tell my opinion about them (but for the record I LOVE THEM). I would have to say "Imaginaerum" is the album that pleasently surprised me the most since "Century Child" and it's another one I absolutely love, even if my opinion about it is not quite formed yet given its recency. But even given all this, I would choose "Century Child" as my immediate answer to the question "Which is your favourite Nightwish album?".
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12.03.2012 - 00:15
Rating: 9
AngelofDeth
Cyborg Raptor
Cant decide what i like better This or Once
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pewpew.. gotcha
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02.10.2012 - 16:34
LordHypnos
Account deleted
It's good, but too commercial...
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11.01.2013 - 16:33
Rating: 7
NocturnalStalker
Metal Addict
The last Nightwish album I really liked. I wasn't and still am not too pleased with the direction they took from this album on towards more "hollywood" kind of metal which is not my kind of music. Still I must admit that this album is quite good. Marco Hietala's vocals compliment Tarja's softer vocals well, guitars sometimes sound harder than ever before and songs differentiate between the outcries of soul and soothing moments which, I think, sets it apart from other band's works.
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"And we are not who we think we are
We are who we're afraid to be"
- Lux Occulta "The Opening of Eleventh Sephirah"
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02.10.2013 - 00:53
serega25
More gothic and melanholic and so gooooood! Beauty Of The Beast is amazing song
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10.02.2014 - 06:21
Rating: 5
salah mustain
Hhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmm. Symphonic power metal ?
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09.04.2014 - 23:43
Rating: 10
Warman
Erotic Stains
Written by salah mustain on 10.02.2014 at 06:21

Hhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmm. Symphonic power metal ?

Yes?
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10.04.2014 - 03:48
Rating: 5
salah mustain
It's not hard to compose
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10.04.2014 - 06:13
Rating: 6
Unhealer
Eclecticist
Written by Warman on 09.04.2014 at 23:43

Yes?

Not really, only a few hints of the power metal era remain. Not enough for me to even mention it.
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10.04.2014 - 12:19
Rating: 10
Warman
Erotic Stains
Written by salah mustain on 10.04.2014 at 03:48

It's not hard to compose

And that's what define symphonic power metal?
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12.04.2014 - 04:58
Rating: 5
salah mustain
No i meant that evryone can do this work , do u see?
it's not as difficult as progressive or tecknical
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04.06.2014 - 21:41
Bad English
Tage Westerlund
Boring album, album by album and you hear such sound and you're use to it .. same time we all remember how good was 1th one... so here are 2 good songs, others are average, some even boring ...and no not because female vocals, because of week more pop song writing and became mainstream ...
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I stand whit Ukraine and Israel. They have right to defend own citizens.

Stormtroopers of Death - "Speak English or Die"

I better die, because I never will learn speek english, so I choose dieing
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06.08.2018 - 20:51
Tatsella
Fangirl
For me this album is "swansong for the Wish of Night".
It sounds different from Oceanborn/Wishmaster, still it hasn't got anything fresh to offer. Maybe Slaying the Dreamer was some kind of experiment but I don't like it much. Nightwish didn't need that kind of agression, Devil and the Deep Dark Ocean is example of good NW more "agressive" song. About half of the songs here are ballads or ballady and they're not at Sleeping Sun level. Though maybe someone can relate to lyrics like in Feel For You. I did in high school
Oceanborn's magic athmosphere is gone but you have another one here, and it's just as emotional.
Part of me hates this album because it led to disaster, to Once. But Century Child ain't bad on its own.
Don't really get why people love that one so much, maybe it was their first and mine was Oceanborn. First impression is very important, you know.
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09.01.2019 - 17:02
Rating: 8
nonZero
Of their highest rated albums on here, this is probably my least favourite. Still a good album overall with some great songs (especially the first 6).
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13.01.2019 - 15:25
Rating: 3
Maasai Mara
I see how chicks would dig this kind of fluffy girly shit. Men who profess love for this girly band or wear any of their merch should be kicked in the nuts.
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You are not metal enough until you visit Kenya. The cradle of mankind, where man learnt first to work with stones and first enjoyed the sounds produced by banging stones which later influenced metal in all its sounds and genres.
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18.02.2020 - 22:43
Rating: 7
Metal Rasputin
This must have been the first metal album I ever bought. It's funny to think that out of the first four albums of Nightwish, this is the one I have listened least. So, even if Century Child has some personal value for me, it's still the first sign of weakness in their discography. It just lacks that one kickass song that manages to capture my attention, but on the other hand there are way too many ballads for my taste. "Bless the Child" and "End of All Hope" come close, but not quite there.
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You've got a lot of guts. Let's see what they look like!
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16.04.2020 - 22:36
abysss
This is the album that got me into Nightwish, I will never forget my first time I heard it, it was also the first time I heard Nightwish and this kind of metal with operatic vocals. It was an amazing experience, love at first listen. It has a special place in my heart, although I love all the first 4 Nightwish album the same way, even if they are so different from one another.
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22.06.2023 - 10:44
Rating: 6
majormalfunction
Probably favor this one to Wishmaster but aside from a alright first half it loses momentum and gets kind of bland.
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Everything's twice as bright with money in your hands
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12.07.2023 - 09:17
Rating: 5
24emd
Theory Snob
Yeah definitely above Wishmaster, but the songwriting still feels very directionless in most songs. It's definitely heavier, which is a good sign, and Marko's vocals are great. I enjoy "Ocean Soul" despite being poppy, but the other songs are fairly meh. Tarja doesn't bother me as much this time around which I suppose is a plus too.
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"I am too stupid to be human, and I lack common sense." - Proverbs 30:2
"Music? Well, it's just entertainment, folks!" - Devin Townsend

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