Two great songs, three good songs, and over half-an-hour of Tuomas messing about with an orchestra.

I don't often begrudge metal musicians for being indulgent, least of all Tuomas, but the triple-whammy of "Scaretale", "Rest Calm" and "Song For Of Myself" surely tried most peoples' patience.

A good album, but it is so hard not to fall asleep when listening to Turn loose the mermaids + Rest calm + The crow, the owl and the dove! Those 15 minutes of non-metal slow songs in a row are too much.
And I had to edit the Song of myself to remove the 6 or 7 minutes of spoken parts. Now the version I own is only 6:53 long.

Man, this is BY FAR Nightwish's biggest grower. After several years I can say that this album has gone from "meh" to my ears to a near masterpiece. Every song is powerful. The folky elements in the ballads is excellent. The orchestrations are beautiful and never overused or unnecessary. The lyrics are great. The songs all fit together and flow perfectly. Painfully underrated album, probably one of their top 3.

It makes me happy that the only 3 songs I like from this album (Storytime, I Want My Tears Back, Last Ride Of The Day) have become the three live regulars from this album

Like usually 75 min album is a bad idea! I'm not saying the album is bad, BUT inevitable the filler parts overwhelm the good parts in this case.

Still the best album without Tarja.

Heh, I gave this album a few listens when it came out, but never came to like it and ended up kinda disliking it. I've listened to a trio of songs off the album since (mentioned in a comment a few above this), but ended up listening to it again today for first time in I guess at least 4 years - it's actually not that bad. There's the occasional misstep (most obviously the second half fo Song Of Myself), but most of the music on here is actually decent - Ghost River in particular took me by surprise, I always had bad memories of it for some reason but it's really pretty good. If I had the willpower to listen to this and Endless Forms... back to back I wouldn't be surprised if I preferred this album actually

Probably their best use of dual vocals. I'd might've rated it a 10 if it weren't for the talky bit in Song Of Myself.

Written by M C Vice on 11.08.2020 at 07:10

if it weren't for the talky bit in Song Of Myself.

Cut it, like I did (back in 2011).

Storytime is a great song, but the rest of the album is painfully average. It has few redeeming qualities, but the music is just so bland and directionless, and the lyrics fail to make me care in the slightest.

I like it, many songs here that are among NW best. One of their best albums.

Relistened to this recently, I've always liked "Storytime", but I thought "Ghost River" and "Slow" were pretty good too. Even the title track works very well as an anti-overture (underture) and proves that the musical ideas here are great, I just don't like how they develop them for the most part. Overall not as bad as I remember. Obviously "Song Of Myself" is straight awful though.