Without Translation- Father Mars album review on demand

I think I can make a decent living with album cover art

Two reviews in a row, you didn't expect that, eh? So, by popular demand of exactly one person I decided to write my first and hopefully the last review of a Within Temptation album. Called by many fans their best work, the album Mother Earth is on the table tonight.

Will it's contents satisfy an asshole like me? Can it wash the bad taste I still have after the Delain's last shit of an album?  How does it compare to like 4 symphonic metal albums I actually like?

Let's start with the title song Mother Earth and with some pipes (?). My extreme knowledge of instruments is only matched by my MS Paint skills. Soon the typical sympho metal crap follows stretching the instrumental intro over one minute long, but since it's an album opener it's fine to build some atmosphere and stretch (stretching is important kids, respect your joints) the intro.

Thankfully vocals soon follow with quite a high pitch and nice long notes from Sharon, while there's a fast waltz on the violins in the background and surprise- drums aren't as boring as I expected from the band. Thankfully the song is a medium tempo because slowing down & turning down the volume to include some male vocals isn't a great idea for an album opener.

But they made it work and the outro is quite cool too. Sadly I don't have good headphones now but I think the band was angry at the guitarist during the songwriting, I barely hear any.

Ice Queen 

Oh hey a song title about my ex girlfriend (comedy gold, everyone stop making comedy- no one will top that shit joke). 

Again, a one minute long intro before the vocals enter, but more atmosphere building than just masturbating the symphonic elements so we're cool. Slightly more guitars, but they don't sound well, I have a joke poking out of my pocket but I'll leave it for later. Vocals again the main driving force of the song with top quality singing and emotions in the key moments, especially just before transitions.

It's hard to focus on anything else, mostly because vocals and drums dominate the sound (quite unexpected from a radio friendly band to put so much focus on drums).

A very nice song, short break in the middle doesn't kill the flow as in the previous song, heartbeating-like sound in the outro also fits the theme. 

Also worth noting that I don't need to have the lyrics in front of me because Sharon sings very clearly.

Our Farewell

Starts slow with a piano and a violin and soon only vocals follow, again, being the main force of the song. Sharon sings the whole thing slowly with a lot of perfectly delivered long notes, and even though the lyrics don't rhyme or suggest a melody she makes it work without using the extremely annoying way of singing I struggled with yesterday during the Nightwish review.

Oh wow, there's a guitar solo! Still doesn't sound well, so either the mixing guy had a personal beef with the guitarist or the guitarist had this discussion.. wait, before I follow with another shitty joke- they have TWO guitarists in this band? Why? I know a guy that can play all this stuff with one hand and they have four? Maybe I don't know some tragic personal stories about the number of their limbs but damn, now my joke doesn't work as well as it should but I still need to follow up with it as I teased it earlier:

The solo definitely overcheeses the song to the extreme, thankfully the outro is ok with Sharon's great vocals.

Caged

The pipes return with a cheerful and I don't know why, they don't fit the song where Sharon is angry at some dude. But don't worry, nothing fits anything in this song, After Sharon produces a lot of frustration the instrumental pause has a sad tone while afterwards Sharon shows off her operatic millenial whoops along with a choir and later guitars and drums enter with a hard rock transition before pipes come back.

What is this mess? What do You want me to feel? It's shorter than 6 minutes and the mood shifts like 7 times. Definitely shouldn't be placed on a supposedly great album.

The Promise

And now boring over 1 minute long intros come back for absolutely no reason. But I think it's the first medium-fast or fast song so far we get after the intro. But it slows down soon for vocals because Symphonic metal fans apparently can't handle fast tempos all the way through. The song afterwards plays around with pacing to make it sound more epic, but the instrumentals aren't adding much to that idea- drum patterns are boring, transitions are simple and guitars are heavily underused. I expected way more from an 8 minute long "epic" song, it sounds almost like a joke compared to similar songs in power metal bands.

Never-ending Story

Yes, for a second I waited for "aaaah-aaaaah-aaaaaah" but then I figured out it's a different song. Sadly. It's a nice, chill ballad but Limahl definitely nailed it way more with their version.

Deceiver of Fools

Another long one, who can bet there's a 1 minute long intro where nothing happens? 

...

Damn it, not only I don't get paid for these but I lost money in a bet, vocals enter at 50 second mark.

And I started falling asleep before something more interesting started happening, losing focus as any novelty I felf in the beginning of the album already faded away. Sharon while having amazing vocals sounds just too similar in the songs and I'm having a Tarja concert flashbacks. The song is much better than The Promise when it comes to transitions and variety, but in The Promise at least was a fast tempo in the beginning to wake me up, here it took 6,5 minutes to shift the tempo to a faster one.

Intro

Hey, at least now they took a 1 minute long intro out of the song and put it as a separate song for some reason. For no reason probably, since previous songs had them built-in.

Dark Wings

And the song is even 4 minutes long, so the above Intro could be well enough put inside and it would change nothing.

The song is a welcome change with a more upbeat tempo and simpler structure at least for a short while since of course any nice, simpler break needs to be ruined around the half of the song and be annoying with Sharon yelling along instrumentals before it slows down for a break.

Then I predict a guitar solo and back for the chorus.. Yup, at least this time the guitar solo actually sounds like something I can't learn in a week.

In Perfect Harmony

Another longer one, at least with a pleasing intro this time, no unnecessary symphonic crap. And Sharon also chilled down with high notes and trying to sound like a phantom of the opera. Chill tones, some simple guitar solos and in general a good album outro.

Ok, finally done with this record, even though the ending was definitely more enjoyable than the middle.

I can totally see why symphonic metal fans like this album- there are high pitched vocals, bunch of opera crap, good use of choirs, rich backgrounds and the guitars are being kicked and peed on just like symphonic metal fans like it. Bad guitars, go back to heavier metal, there is no place for you here!

And I'm ever so glad to say I'm not a symphonic metal fan. I felt quality and fresh air when I started listening to this album, but during the middle the novelty ran out, songs had very little energy, vocals started to sound too similar, especially in places where Sharon wanted to outtarja Tarja. Drums actually got worse as the album progressed, or I lost focus way more than I thought.

There's not much of a concept here, aside of a fitting intro-outro that pack the album nicely, lyrics are good and Sharon's way to sing them is even better, song placement is fine and the general quality of sound is very high, aside of mixing guitars.

It's definitely an album driven by vocals, they get treated way better than everything else in the mix and in the general songwriting. While I don't know the band- with what I've heard here I don't see them making an interesting instumental song.

Final score:

Vocals:   10+/10
Guitars: 4/10
Bass:      not applicable/10
Drums:  7/10
Keyboards: 9/10


Additional scores:
+ well it delivers what the fans want I guess
+ rich backgrounds, bunch of cool sounds used
+ holds up after all that time as I didn't listen to the remaster
+ generally a good quality of mixing and production
+ good lyrics both in quantity and quality
- lack of energy aside of a few hit songs
- bunch of intros everywhere that slow down the momentum of the song and pacing of the whole album
- total tonal mess in Caged
- you can fire one guitarist and the bassist and there will be no difference in sound, trust me.


Final Score: 78%. - Symphonic metal fans will be very happy, pop fans should be rather happy, rest of metalheads will fall asleep somewhere around song nr. 6

Nightwish - Human bad, Nature good album review

I should make album covers for a living, I'm so great at it.

Every few years we get a new Nightwish album that tries to both sound and not sound like the previous Nightwish. Followed by a bunch of both easy and hard to please symphonic metal version of Slayer fans it's a definitely one of a kind band.

So, is Tarja era still better? Is the album worse than any Anette album? Find out when I don't answer any of these questions because who the fuck cares, here we go with

Nightwish: Omnium -[ ]- Gatherum 

Human :) Nature :( 

Orange man bad

Phone bad

Human. :||: Nature.

Human. :||: Natvre.

Get it? Because Nightwish is so trve kvlt metal satan6666!!!11 I think I'm having a stroke. Here we go:

Music (don't name your songs that way, jesus christ)
It starts slow with the both industrial and animal sounds, jungle drums, keyboards drowned in a swimming pool, then choirs, incepction trailer bwaah with a electric guitar and then enter vocals.

First thing that annoys me is that the lyrics themselves don't have any melody at all aside for the chorus. I don't expect words to rhyme because overrhyming is a sin too, but to avoid sounding like talking Floor is using a very annoying way of singing words, stretching some words while singing fast the others.
Thankfully the general structure of the song, guitar solo and drums are good enough to make it an ok opener.

There, I`ll greet the greedy crowd

But will never, ever sing to them

Well, coming from a band that has gigs organized by Live Nation it sounds really fucking stupid.

Noise

Ok intro, stupid transition, intro continues. Can't decide if it's artistic or autistic. Then the track continues into a yet another Nightwish-Hit-Single-Music-Video-Material (or NHSMVM for an easy to remember short name) which is fine, definitely shows Delain how the lyrics should be written for a good single as the chorus is a perfect blend of catchy and meaningful, no lazy millenial whoop added.

I can't say the verses are perfect though, Floor sings them so fast she loses breath at times which is audible in the song and the sins of the previous song are still visible at times (but overall it's good) 

Cool instrumental moments and ideas, like pausing a second after a strike of a big drum, speeding up in the 2/3rd. Definitely reminds the listener that Nightwish was or still is considered partially a power metal band (and now they have a drummer that can enrich those power metal elements).

Shoemaker

So far the worst of the three, the annoying way of singing is the strongest here and I can't believe no one in the band thought it's a bad idea, especially Marko who has a great sense of vocal and lyrical melody.

Instrumental parts aren't anything special either, only the opera vocals and choirs in the 3/4 of the song save it by being really good. Strong finisher for a bland, bad song.

Harvest

Jungle drums open this rather chill, almost acoustic (if not for the background) song sang well by Troy and with rather well written lyrics with just one small annyoing part ("water the field, surrended to the earth" he sings the first the so fast it sounds like "water fields" ).

But no, Nightwish couldn't have a nice, short, thematically fitting song to break the metal parts, there is an out of ass clapping followed by a totally unnecessary symphonic metal parts with a pipe and guitar solos that fucking LAST FOREVER in a typical pseudoprog fashion, followed by another out of ass idea (short radio vocals).

I don't understand why the fuck they would ruin a nice, short break from metal parts by adding the metal parts, is meeting the 5 minute mark so fucking important? The solo part is almost 90 FUCKING SECONDS LONG.

Cool idea totally ruined.

Pan

Back to no melody in the vocals. Nightwish should be glad I don't have good headphones now, because I believe there might be a flaw in the mixing but I'll take the blame for now.

This time even the chorus isn't catchy. There are some cool heavy metal parts, something Visions of Atlantis should use more in their music, especially in music videos.

The part after the second chorus, with the instrumental mess and choirs can be summarized only with this:

Very tiring and the lyrics don't suggest that this way of presentation is needed.

How's the Heart startings interestingly with heart beating before pipes come back with a vengence.

It sounds lighter and more pop-ish in the beginning but in a typical Floor-Nightwish fashion it needs to be ruined around 2/3rd of the song with experimentation. 

There's a good melody in the lyrics here but Floor still screws the chorus singing like this:

How's that heart

Underneaththesilence?

How's the one

Drowninginthemire?

To meet the 5 minute mark the last 2 minutes of the song is repeating the chorus as if it was something spectacular. Floor definitely puts her best in the last few. At least they didn't Luca Turilli'd this one with starting the song with the chorus like a retard.

Procession

Oh wow (phrase ruined by Christopher Bowes overusing it), an actually good Nightwish song. Kinda, at the very least good effort.

First of all Floor chills down with annoying way of singing, sounding more like talking and it fits the main idea of the song since it's a story with a progression in music.

The lyrics are good, even if endings of sentences could have more power + the last verse hammers down the point a bit too much, it's still fine.

The instrumental break in the middle is a bit too long (SO IMPORTANT TO MEET THAT FUCKING 5 MINUTE MARK, EH!? ) but overall, in the end it's an idea for a song realized well and it counts. So far a second song after Noise that I personally like.

Tribal

I was so close to saying "Make that a third song that I like". It starts well with a good amount of heavy sounds and Floor high and long notes followed by fast, aggressive singing and headbanging guitars afterwards along with pretty disturbing atmosphere and grunting. 120% love from me.

So what went wrong? Well Nightwish's fun police enters at 3 minute mark and adds sounds that totally bring you out of the atmosphere and sound more like Alone in the Dark movie soundtrack.

Whoever's idea was it to ruin that song- an honest fuck you.

Endlessness 

I'm not surprised my friend shared this song on facebook- it's the best on the album even if Marko sings in the same annoying fashion like Floor during the verses (thankfully not too much).

The chorus is the main selling point, catchy, with a good atmosphere and fitting Marko's voice. Everytime I hear that man singing I wish there was one more Tarot's album.

Nightwish doesn't implement any experimental ideas and lets the song proceed gracefully to the end with a fitting guitar solo too. Floor pops in for a second but only adds, she doesn't ruin anything.

Well, this album is definitely a trip. It's hard to describe as a whole, but I'll do my best.

As it's a concept album the concept part is done really well, the theme of this whole mess is presented nicely, lyrics don't repeat themselves when it comes to presenting the idea.

Lyrics are well written, there's a plenty of them and the quantity is the best quality here, because when it comes to melodic flow in the lyrics there are some very audible lacks that are patched by the style of singing, which kept annoying me through the majority of the album.

But I am willing to let them pass, because of the sheer number of words used and that they fit the concept very well.

Vocals are good and the passion of both vocalists is there, I don't like the way of singing some parts but when a certain song needs strong vocals- they are there.

Not much to say about guitars, bass and drums- drums are definitely the most rich of these three and they utilized Kai Hahto's extraordinary skills much better than on the previous album, they let him shine where he can. Riffs are quite boring, safe but the solos don't sound bad.

Background is rich with keyboards and other sounds, I'm no specialist when it comes to symphonic metal elements but they are there, well mixed in and fit the sound very nicely.

I have a lot of problems with the general structures of the songs and experimentation. I know that Nightwish has a lot of fans to please, so they need to both play it safe for the old audience, introduce enough new ideas to avoid repetition but also stay catchy.

But there's a lot of good ideas ruined by later experimentation or good ideas later ruined by trying to play it safe and sound similar to good old Nightwish.

While I'm aware it's a very difficult game to play as you can't please everyone I'm definitely not happy with the outcome.

Final score:

Vocals:   9-/10
Guitars: 7/10
Bass:      8/10
Drums:  8+/10

Additional scores:
++ very nicely realized concept of the album
++ very rich background, defintiely a must-listen to fans of symphonic crap.
+ standard nightwish quality is there when it comes to mixing and production
+ a lot of lyrics, definitely not written on a knee during a trip to the studio
+ all 3 vocalists did a good job and worked nicely in duets & choirs
+ good song placement on the album, more exhausting elements are followed by more chill stuff.
-- They tried too much to be Ayreon, Luca Turilli or Avantasia here and it failed more than it succeeded.
-- a bunch of initially good ideas ruined afterwards
- very little melody in the verses of a few songs
- very annyoing way of singing mentioned verses to avoid "talking, not singing"

Final Score: 85%. - Nightwish fans will be very happy, symphonic metal fans will be happy, power metal fans won't feel like they wasted time, new Delain album fucking sucks compared to this.

The Dark Element- Songs The Night Sings album review

A few weeks ago I reviewed my first Visions of Atlantis album for https://strong-as-hell.com and I was pretty surprised how good it was and that it will be a good opponent for Jani's new masterpiece.

Will the second album live up to the Dark Element debiut from 2017? Will it beat Wanderers?  I'm sure the answer for both those questions is 'yes' but let's find out.

Not Your Monster , track number one.
Compared to the debut's first song we have more background riffing and more background in general.
When I heard it for the first time it seemed weaker than the other 2 new singles but reviewing this album I hear it has values of it's own, especially the progressive middle instrumental part adds more complexity than it was present on the previous album. The build-up leads nicely to a vocal part enriched by the heavenly choirs before it all fells silent for the piano solo break before it goes back to headbanging. Definitely more stuff is happening compared to the debut's opener track.


Songs the Night Sings- so the titular track is second on the second album, while it was first on the first album. I don't know if that was intended but it's a fun thing to notice. Absolutely a hit song here and views on Youtube show that.
Basically the 'Omnium Gatherum's Frontiers' for symphonic metal,  a genre defining song, one you show to people when you introduce them to the genre or show the absolute best of it. From amazing structure, angelic vocals, catchy lyrics and flowing melody through rich background,  cool drum transitions to a fucking bass solo and a screaming guitar solo. Add some electronic sounds to the chorus and you can spin this track alone for an hour.


When It All Comes Down melody really reminds me of one polish electronic music song( C-BooL - Magic Symphony), definitely an interesting case as the song mixes fast intro with slow pace on vocals and very fast guitar solo where Jani goes crazy and my dick gets hard. 
I think the outro while cool and atmospheric could be tiny bit shorter, still a great song.

Silence Between The Words has a lighter tone but the lyrical themes aren't as positive as the sound. Less experimental that the last song as as usually 4th track of any album is a little break this also serves it's porpoise.

happily served porpoise

Ekhem, the outro sounds like the good years of Delain. Scratch that, it sounds better with Anette putting some strong emotions, awesome.

Pills on my Pillow [insert old gold Grabbin' Pills meme here] 

Always heard but not believed

Not even by me

Ok, this is something I wish Babymetal was more on their last album- disco mixed with symphonic metal/rock but with dark lyrical themes. The most pop Dark Element ever sounded but honestly it's just FUN as FUCK.

To Whatever End is a ballad with heavy focus on Anette's vocals and oh boy does she deliver. Anyone saying "she's a pop vocalist, not a good metal vocalist" should shut up, she can definitely deliver chills down your spine with songs that bring her best performances out. And Jani can defitely help her shine like a confinement beam at the National Ignition Facility in Livermore, California. 

Analogy brough to you by https://what-if.xkcd.com/13/


The Pallbearer Walks Alone starts almost like a melodic death metal track before going into a hit song filled with lyric repetitions in verses and bridges. While it helps to get the message clear and across I think it's tiny bit too much. Still, it's the 'good' kind of repetition so I'll give it a pass.
Some slight industrial and electronic vibes here and there, very catchy chorus and a good solo help to focus on more positive aspects of the song so in the end it's good.

Get Out Of My Head really stands out since the intro melody is cool but the lyrics are the worst so far, short and weak, it feels like even Anette isn't bringing her A game, especially heard with "is still a rose" line.
But then from 2:35 we have some weird experimentation that would work in a song if the first half wasn't so bad (or on a different song). It doesn't save the general feel that this song is a filler or should be polished a bit more.

If I Had A Heart worries me at first if it's another filler but it has enough oomph behind it with the solo, it's placement, background and Anette's performance that it deserves to be called a good song, even if it's simpler than previous songs.

You Will Learn experiments a bit with the radio voice in the beginning but then it turns into heavy headbang track and finally shifts the lyrical themes from broken hearts to self improvement which is it's highest positive, feels like a fresh puff of air after weeks spent in a small room.
Sadly the chorus is overrepeated a bit in the end (despite being great), but the outro itself is very nice.

I Have To Go is a relaxing closer to this album, sounding like a totally different genre (I'm too dumb to clearly say what). It's short, it's good, heavy focus on Anette and ends without any explosions.
So let's add some!

I'm Michael, maybe not Bay but close enough

So these are the songs that night sings, eleven of them. Could be ten which would make the album better but if Jani wants to add something more experimental than others then who am I to judge.

Jani definitely experimented more on this album than on previous one and added more power, more backgrounds without making it another Cain's Offering album so overall it sounds like an improvement over the first album- kept the catchy stuff we loved and added something new. Also as I asked during the debut review- there are more solos, so my score is higher.

Anette is without changes, still nails in almost every track and To Whatever End really stands out as probably the best song I heard her sing when it comes to vocal performance alone.

When it comes to bass and drums I heard a bass solo so hey, there's that. I didn't notice changes in the drum area, changing the drummer didn't change the sound. I will miss 'the other Jani' in this project but Rolf 'always happy to play in anything' Pilve is always welcome in any band/project.

At last compared to Wanderers it's a close match as both albums are great. But I'll take experimental over sexy boi Michele and tentacle porn anyday. And yes, without context it looks even worse than with.

Final score:

Vocals:   10/10
Guitars: 10+/10
Drums:   9/10

Additional scores:
+ still catchy
+ still complex (more than on the debut)
+ still cool lyrics
+ still great mixing
+ still good song placement on the album
+ overall a good follow up to the debut, lives up to the highly set expectations, like Silence to Ecliptica
- there are some failed experiments and repetitions
- While there's improvement I still think more varied lyrical themes could be good for the project, a lot of broken heart related songs here.
+ Anette isn't from Finland, she's from Sweden. I didn't know that during my first review so now I give her a plus as an apology since the score doesn't matter anyway.

Final Score: 109%. A must-listen to any Jani and Anette fan, definitely a money/time well spent for anyone else.

PS:  score for Bass guitar was 9+/10, I just like to joke with bass scores in my reviews since I never hear bass. Sorry I explained the joke, I just ruined it, now Karol won't love me anymore. Which also without context looks at least a little weird.

PPS: back from my 2017 review:

I am so sorry for being a lazy shit, I bet it's wonderful though

I forgot- since there's a small chance Anette/band will publish my extremely weird review on facebook I should write a sentence that summarizes the album well and shows my proficiency in album reviewing.. Uhh, ok, here it goes:

This masterpiece from Finnish Swedish Scandinavian duo Jani Liimatainen & Anette Olzon shows the world that symphonic metal can be something more fun than snooze-inducing, recycled Nightwish clones. It's fun, experimental and Frontiers please give them money for a tour after you fix your warehouse issues of course.

aaand I think I failed. Thanks for reading, You're the best.