Review by bardberic published
"The album starts of amazingly, with some of Nightwish's best work to date; then Troy is put on vocals and I'm just like "ugh." Come on, Tuomas, he's a terrible vocalist.
Mastering is a little overdone, but is forgivable, and mixing feels off, as well. I'll give 'em props for the progressive/experimental nature of the album; probably their most progressive album to date. Will require more listens to garner more appreciation here, and if not for the less than satisfactory engineering work, it'd probably be a grower. Not a fan of the synthy/80s poppish moments ("The Day of..." was a, erm, failed experiment imo).
Also what's with the repetition of "we are" in some of the songs' lyrics... lol it sounds like a Penn State advertisement.
Overall a considerable improvement over Human:||:Nature as it is much more consistent (and has more DR, I think), and in some ways better than Endless Forms Most Beautiful, as it is more ambitious (and bombastic, like their earlier work), but lacks the concise refinement that made EFMB masterful imo. Goes a little too far into left field for me, but at least it doesn't have the "kumbaya" moments of their previous album...
"An Ocean of Strange Islands" is kind of by a long shot the best song on the album and probably of Jansen-era thus far. It's not even close, how much better than the rest of the album it is. "Something Whispered Follow Me" is probably Nightwish's first dive into proper prog metal, too, and it's quite good (kind of has some Opethian vibes imo).
Upon second listen, ig my other major complaint would be that the symphonics here really sound bad, like MIDI. It doesn't feel organic like on the previous 2 albums..."
