Anastasia Yefremova

Gorgeous, mature, elegant album. Really harkens to all eras of Nightwish while really showcasing their growth and evolution. It's satisfyingly heavy. with a weight and gravitas to the instrumentation, but it's not an angsty, angry album. I feel like a lot of people who complain and say they miss the "old" Nightwish don't really acknowledge that it's a younger, less worldly Nightwish that they miss. The musicians are older, they've experienced more, and that's reflected in the more complicated nuances of the songs that sometimes require patience to build into the crescendo we love Nightwish. That said, I do acknowledge the one major fault of the album, which is just how love in the mix Floor's voice is. I know it's purposeful, I know she's meant to mix with the choir at times like the "voices of our ancestors," but not to the point where she becomes basically indistinguishable. This is Floor, we want to hear her. Love the B-sides on this so much! Almost more than the singles they released ahead of time. Still not sure why they chose to go with "The Day Of..." instead of with something like "The Children of 'Ata" if they wanted to showcase a synth-y sound. "The Children of 'Ata" has a great synth/80s sounding intro and is much more impactful than the overall sound of "The Day Of...". Other than that though, can't really complain. "The Weave" is a great unexpected surprise toward the end of the album, and "Lanternlight" never fails to make me feel choked up. Incredible, incredible album. Rollercoaster of emotions for this one, more than any other album I've heard from the Floor era. "Endless Forms Most Beautiful" was incredible, too, but it spoke more to a universal point of view than a humanistic one, the way this one does. It's more internal focused than external.