Article by
Jessica
Dark Chest Of Wonders – This is a pretty good opening track. Bombastic,
great orchestra, and I only REALLY noticed the orchestra after my Dad
pointed out that the orchestra work damn hard on this track, you
just don't notice it. One thing I must comment about on the negative side, are the
lyrics for this track. The lyrics of the first verse are quite
frankly, not up to Nightwish standards. However, no hope is lost for
this track. The rest of the lyrics eventually come together and start
to sound like something Mr. Tuomas Holopainen himself would write.
There's no doubting that the music is excellent.
I Wish I Had An Angel - Now, I know lots of people have put this track
down because of the dance beat, but I am very different. I think the
beat suits the song perfectly and the music for this track in general
is good. This track doesn't rank in my favourites from Once, but it's
still a good track and I don't skip it. It's quite a simple track,
vocal-wise and music-wise. The lyrics aren't too bad either. I wouldn't
say they were great lyrics, but they're good. The same goes for the
whole song, I wouldn't say it was a great song, but it's good.
Nemo - This in my opinion is the song that stands out most for me on
the album in terms of emotions. This song means a lot to me. The music
is beautiful, the lyrics are very sad and beautiful, and Tarja's voice
is beautiful. To me, it's a very sad song, but it's not a slow,
depressing song. It's quite upbeat, and the guitaring is the typical
Emppu-rocks guitaring. Tuomas features quite a lot on this song aswell,
with only a few notes that are simple, but very beautiful. It's like
he's proving that you don't need everything to be beautiful, or
something like that. The orchestra features greatly here aswell,
especially at the end. All in all, Nemo is the most beautiful,
emotional Nightwish song I've ever heard.
Planet Hell - This song would be one hell of a great opening song for a
gig. There's quite a big introduction of war-sounding choirs. Kinda
like what a choir would be like in Lord Of The Rings at Isengard or
some big battle, getting ready to fight, lining up infront of the King
or leader, staring the enemy in the eye, charging, charging. Then,
Nightwish kick in. Great drum beats and guitaring. Imagine that's when the
army hit the enemy full speed. To me, a whole battle can be imagined
listening to the music of Planet Hell. However, the title and the
lyrics are different to the big battle scenes in your head. The lyrics
make you imagine your village is burning up. Living in the Victorian
times, a little village next to a river. The River Styx . There was a
war. Your village is on fire. And you either stay here and burn to
death, or you pay the ferryman in the ferry a penny and cross the River
Styx to safety. Planet Hell creates all kind of images in your mind,
and this, to me, makes a good song.
Creek Mary's Blood - It starts out a bit lame to be honest. There is
hardly any music, just the occasional beat of a drum and some kind of
woodwind item, a flute or something. Tarja starts singing, and her
voice is harmonised with herself singing over herself, if that makes any
sense. The best thing about the first minute or so is the lyrics of the
first verse; Simple, but effective. Then there's a tiny chorus, which
describes a lot in only two lines. Then there's a second verse, which
is great. The music is still a bit bad though. Then we go into a
second, larger chorus. From there on, the music is absolutely
fantastic. Some of the greatest music I've ever heard from Nightwish. From that second chorus on, the song in general is fantastic. Creek
Mary's Blood is the song on Once that, so far, has the greatest music.
The Siren - One of the weakest parts of the album in my opinion. The
best thing about it is that Marco sings the chorus and Tarja harmonizes
rather beautifully over the top. Apart from that, this song has nothing
special about it. The music isn't up to what the previous five songs
were, and the lyrics aren't anything special either.
Dead Gardens - Great song! Really good lyrics and nice vocals. One of
the strongest points on the album. It's amazing how this song was made
from Tuomas' writers block, when this song helps me immensely when I
feel like writing. The music is great aswell. Well, I say the music is
great. The music is great up until the end, where Emppu starts playing
a really annoying two-note riff for like a minute. It's just so
repetitive at the end. If it wasn't for the ending, this song would be
well up there in the greatest Nightwish songs.
Romanticide - Again, a very strong point on the album. The music is
great, the vocals are great and the lyrics are good. The chorus is very
strong all round; lyrics, music and vocals. It has been described as "Slaying the dreamers Big Brother". I agree vocal-wise, and lyric-wise
I agree in some points. But I don't agree music-wise, apart from the
chorus. The music for the chorus is brilliant, very angry-like. But
apart from that, the music itself doesn't seem too angryish. All in
all, the chorus itself is a very good song. The song itself would
probably come somewhere near the good songs by Nightwish. In between
the great and the worst.
Ghost Love Score - This song is, musically, the highlight of the album.
Bombastic orchestras, choirs, and I can bet my life that it'll be like
beauty of the beast, in a sense that it'll be split into parts. The
music is always changing through the song, but it changes very
smoothly. A very touching song. Especially the chorus. This deserves to
be in the list of greatest Nightwish songs, if only just for all the
hard, hard work that Nightwish and the orchestra have put into it.
Kuolema Tekee Taiteilijan - Has a very beautiful melody. It's a
slow(ish) song, and although I personally can't understand a word Tarja
is singing, it has that beautiful lyrics, beautiful song thing to it. I
can't really say much about it, since I have no idea about the lyrics,
but the music is beautiful. If you think of the whole of Lappi, the
music from that. Especially Erämaajärvi.
Higher Than Hope - This song starts out like you would think a sad song
would. Slow, sad emotion in Tarja's voice, sad lyrics. For those of you
who don't know, Higher Than Hope is about a little boy, who was at a
Nightwish concert. He had cancer. He came on stage and hugged the hell
out of Tuomas. 5 weeks later, the poor kid died. If you just listen to
the song, it doesn't mean much. But if you know the background of it,
then it means a lot. The chorus which starts off ‘Red sun rising,
drown without inhaling…' if your very imaginative, not that you
need to be mind you, you can actually imagine what was going through
Tuomas' head. Red sun rising, death coming. Drown without inhaling,
falling to death without taking a breath to breathe. It's hard to
explain, but I think this song is very emotional, if you get the same
feeling as me.
Overall, Once is, to me, the most emotional and physically superior
album by Nightwish so far. The music, the lyrics, the vocals, they are
all far superior to any other previous album. In my opinion, the best
song from the album is Nemo. It means a lot to me, and the video means
a lot too. The orchestra is fantastic, and the whole of Nightwish have
improved majorly since Century Child. Tuomas is much more noticed on
Once aswell, and Emppu is at his greatest peak in this album,
especially on songs such as Siren and Romanticide. One thing I must
mention, however, is that Jukka isn't drumming to his best, in my
opinion. On Wishmaster, there is a lot of double bass. on Once, there's
hardly any double bass. That's the only thing I have to comment
negatively about.
-Jess
