This month, From The Collection, brings you a relatively new selection. To this reviewer, it has been a long held opinion that the genres of classical music and what is considered heavy metal where and are one in the same. This has never been so prevalent than with the Finnish band Nightwish and their 2012 release, “Imaginaerum”.

Nightwish consist of Anette Olson (Vocals), Marco Hietala (Bass, Vocals), Emppu Vuorinen (Guitars), Jukka Nevalainen (Drums, Percussion) and Tuomas Holopainen (Piano, Keyboards).

Throughout this recording Anette Olson and Marco Hietala share the majority of the vocals throughout each song. Anette exhibits a soft, operatic voice in each recording that is clear. Marco will join in during the dramatic moments. This leads to exceptional theatre in your mind with “Ghost River”, “I Want My Tears Back” and in truly showing his vocal range in “Rest Calm”.

Not with every selection in this recording do they share as Anette’s vocal really takes over by herself in the old time feeling, storytelling “Storytime” and the celtic, mystic feeling, “Turn Loose The Mermaids”.

Adding to the theatrical feel of this piece of musical works are the rest of the band and the accompanying orchestration. The tempo is brought to a slowed pace and then brought up for the urgent moments. This reviewer felt taken in and away by this style in “Scaretale”, “Slow, Love, Slow” and the epic, “Song of Myself”. The latter a thirteen minute marathon that is worth the time it took to put together.

There are added bonuses to this recording in that their native Finnish language was used for “Talkatavi”, the track that sets the stage for this whole piece of art as well as the musical interludes given to us in “Arabesque” and the CD closing “Imaginaerum”.

One cannot make mention of this CD without fully appreciating the second disk that is with the deluxe edition in which each song is played by the Looking Glass Orchestra is its full richness.

For the listener, “Imaginaerum” feels like a dramatic play set to music in the mentions are felt in every note as the story unfolds. For anyone, this recording is highly recommending for an inspiring day.

For more information about Nightwish:

www.nightwish.com

Four picks out of Five.

Andrew Scott is a published international author, reviewer and radio show host.