Nightwish - Imaginaerum

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.

It drags too much, and the overabundance of grand symphonies and beautiful melodies only grows more and more annoying.

For what it's worth, I still think this album is at least second best in their whole discography. It may not be as "impactful" or "eternal" as Oceanborn, but musically, it is at least just as (perhaps more) diverse and creative. Also it came without excessive (or at least too obvious) "negative baggage" that plagued DPP (see Poet and the Pendulum, Bye Bye Beautiful, Master Passion Greed - no matter how good these songs might be, they can be hard to listen to when you remember what they are about).

The songs are very different, and I can't say I love them all, but each one has plenty of character and at least parts that I enjoy. I've never been the one to demand constant "action" from my music, so I appreciate the amount of slower songs, orchestral parts, even the spoken parts (yes, I really like them). This is part of what makes it a great album, a complete work of art rather than just a collection of great songs. And the final track is the absolute best way to end it - not just an outro as any other band would have done (if it even bothered to do anything more than a good closer song), but a truly outstanding medley reminding and showcasing all the great diversity of what came before. It may not be metal, but I consider it a proper standalone track in its own right, even though it works much better in the context it was intended for.

Anette's vocals here are as good as they possibly could be - I'd never go as far as to call her one of the best metal vocalists ever, but as someone who's been lucky to catch Nightwish live with all of their vocalists, I say that she was really, really good (with some of the old songs, too). Her Imaginaerum vocals are a clear improvement from DPP - no wonder, considering Tuomas definitely wrote this album with her voice and abilities in mind, and she worked hard in the meantime, too. Anyway, at the time it came out, this album was all the proof I still needed that Nightwish is Nightwish, no matter who's got the mic.