One problem with bands leaving five-year gaps between albums is that if one comes out that you’re not so keen on, you end up waiting a decade for new material you can get behind. Every Nightwish release presents an array of delights, but 2020’s Human. :II: Nature. double album rather overbalanced the band’s delicate fulcrum away from grand operatic metal towards a diverse hotchpotch of folk, pop, musical theatre, alt rock, world music, orchestral bells and whistles, maudlin sentimentality and ponderous pomposity.
These were always factors in the Nightwish deal, but kept in check during the Tarja era, when clarion choruses and diamond hooks had priority. The 79-minute Endless Forms Most Beautiful from 2015 was similarly uneven and overstretched, meaning that after two albums and nearly 10 years, the full scope of Floor Jansen’s vocal talents haven’t been showcased on a wholly satisfying Nightwish album. Until now.
Without any rehearsal and shortly after the birth of her daughter, Floor aced her vocal takes in half the allotted studio time – and there is a lot of challenging material for her to inhabit. With quick-fire rhythms, declamatory passion, expressive gasps and squeals, as well as vulnerable moments of tender grace, Floor offers a flawless blend of technical precision, spontaneous energy and storytelling conviction.
It’s all there on kaleidoscopic, nine-minute opener-proper An Ocean Of Strange Islands: the longest song on their shortest LP in 20 years (it’s a comparatively compact 69 minutes), setting out their stall with a heartening reassertion of core Nightwish principles.
This is maintained throughout all 12 songs, the band sounding heavier and livelier than they’ve been for years on robust headbanger The Antikythera Mechanism, Something Whispered Follow Me’s enigmatic theatrics, the flowery gothic pop-metal of Spider Silk and glittering advance cut Perfume Of The Timeless.
Atavistic ballad Sway reconnects Nightwish with the campfire folk of their demo days, while the crafty interplay of The Weave reminds us that with new bass man Jukka Koskinen onboard, the band now feature a rhythm section bonded by 20 years in melodic death metal crew Wintersun, the low-end undertow a crucial presence in the Yesterwynde sound picture.
Nightwish won’t be touring this album, which seems a shame, as so many songs here seem to compel a communal emotional reaction. But there is a more intimate, even introspective vibe to Yesterwynde – a cute but tortuous neologism around nostalgia – that makes it a natural choice for late-night home study and solo absorption.
While it reawakens a certain discipline and focus in the Finnish sextet, providing new clarion choruses and diamond hooks to stand beside their early power metal bangers, the sinuous arrangements, deep themes and virtuosic performances mark it out as their proggiest record yet. Here Tuomas Holopainen’s fascination with evolutionary science is viewed through the prism of ancestral bloodlines, the concept coming alive with a more human essence, making relatable sense of philosophical abstractions without the studenty chin-stroking. Pushing all the emotional buttons while putting fists in the air, Nightwish find their strongest form for many a moon.
Yesterwynde is out September 20 via Nuclear Blast
