My first thoughts – I listened to it in the car and made only mental notes (and now I’m going mostly by memory), so pardon any mistakes:
- First of all, those that were complaining about the mixing since the first two songs came out, well, I can hear it now. The mix is really weird and I just don’t get it how the longer the bands are in the business, the worse their albums sound. And it’s not production, as I’ve seen said, but precisely mixing that’s complete shit, furthermore inconsistent over the album? There are differently overwhelming layers on different songs, but the one consistent thing is that the higher frequencies (including Floor) are drowned out.
- The album feels really front-heavy, not necessarily in terms of quality (although that too, maybe), but energy-/memorability- wise. But then again, that's nothing new for Nightwish, I'd swear Tuomas has learnt his album sequencing from U2.
- As far as Floor’s vocals go, this is what I wanted from EFMB – she is present and actually shows off her talent, but isn’t overwhelming (which is also because of the mix) and somewhat disperses in the sound.
- Kai Hahto is more noticeable and makes some of the songs (Ocean, Spider Silk) much more fun by his presence alone.
- Nothing really pissed me off on this record, if anything, there’s no „Dire Straits’ Brothers in Arms being covered for Disney’s Brother Bear“ (aka Harvest).
- Overall, I'm liking this a lot. There are moments that genuinely thrill me, in general, I guess I have to reluctantly admit that Nightwish exist again for me (i. e. - a first canon album since 2011. Man, what a long time between albums, amirite?)
Song-specific notes:
Yesterwynde is okay, it reminds me of some actual work, but my memory now fails me, anyway, a nice intro.
An Ocean of Strange Lands – honestly, I kinda like the wack mixing here, as the song get started, it has this nervous, chaotic, energetic feel, it feels lively in a way that I wouldn’t expect Nightwish to manage anymore. Liking it a lot. The outro was an unexpected nice touch and an example of Troy being used right (although I’m still not sure how much the openly Celtic-folk theme fits Nightwish… but then again, it’s been over a decade now) – it is true that it helps the beginning of the album to sound a bit like
Days of Future Passed, with all its songs divided by orchestral interludes, but … well, that used to be among my favourite albums once (though not exactly for its interludes), so whatever.
With the shift to the self-important nagging and a great humanism out of a sudden, with Shoemaker off the very previous album and now with The Antikythera Mechanism (the title already!) I can’t help but feel Tuomas has some serious Mark Jansen envy – never thought that of all things would be the case, especially now, more than 10 years after Epica’s heyday, but here you have it. I genuinely like Mechanism, for all it’s discount-Epica worth, in fact with this song being a banger, the first half/third of the album is possibly the strongest Nightwish sequence since 2007 (I found the
Imaginaerum sequencing to be a bit lacking, myself – I think I already mentioned it in the ranking game).
Although the „Humankind, reconciled, human child, undefiled“ chorus is a bit weird and because of the mix and everything, I head Floor yelling „genocide!“ randomly there, which kinda gave me yet more Jansenvibes, but no, no, the actual lyrics are 100% pure Tuomas, for better or worse.
Next comes the Kamelot song:
The Day Of...
Wow. Kudos for something this unusual to be a second single. Am I the only one who hears the Karelot vibes? (or maybe it's just the children choirs and the vaguely gothic atmosphere).
EDIT: no, fuck, it's because the chorus goes "We are the ill-starred kids of your junkyard" - it obviously reminds you of "
We are the last to walk the Earth // And watch the passing ages slowly sail", especially with the children there.
Again, Anette-era vibe, both with the weirdness and the atmosphere. After the first listen, I can't help it, I'm liking this a lot.
my feelings are still more or less the same, I like it quite a lot.
And Perfume
Perfume - as I've unfortunately played the song on PC at work, I couldn't shake off the feeling the intro felt like a YouTube ad that started before the song, you know
Hero Wars or
Royal Match or something.
I
know the background vocals in the subdued section are supposed to bring Our Decades to mind, but I just couldn't help but think of
HammerFall.
But that's nitpicking and me being caustic, I admit that I mostly like it.
Then the verse began and (it has Anette-era vibes)
I suppose both songs do, if you told me Perfume was a DPP/Imaginaerum outtake that's been dusted off and repurposed for the Floor era, I'd believe you. The chorus sounds slightly more like a current-era NW song, but I still feel Anette era through and through. It's probably not 100% fresh melodically, but I'm lazy to think about where I heard the elements before, but purely going on gut feeling, the first impression is that they sound the freshest in the past 13 years, even if it is a step back.
(although the orchestration is a tad overblown and kinda drowns the song, but still)
The outro is nice, but overdone. ESPECIALLY with the intro
I guess I just got used to Perfume even more since it came out, I was singing the chorus to myself and enjoyed it very much, actually.
Sway is the first truly subdued moment off the record and a rather nice one. This is probably what Harvest should have been, cheesy, but tolerable. I actually enjoyed this fist moment of gentleness, although the choir interlude (and to a degree, the pseudo-world-music outro) is superfluous, it could have remained in the acoustic ballad genre, à la The Islander. And I really miss Marco here, more than ever.
The Children Of’Ata begins with some more searching for your spirit animal and some really wack synth sound and … is that a dance beat? Fuck, the combination sounds like Karma (the Croatian band). The song proper is better although kinda unmemorable. There’s some heaviness, some choirs, some drama, but honestly feels more like an interlude than Troy’s noodling after Ocean. Oh, wait, there actually is a chorus, but you actually notice only at the very end of the track. It’s … kinda okay, I guess.
Something Whispered Follow Me – the beginning reminds of something really much, the strumming, the soaring guitar … I’m feeling some classic rock vibes, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. I’m liking it, though. With how Emppu returns between the verses, it gives off almost a bit doomy/gothic vibes, which I’m quite happy about; the verses are a bit more run of the mill, but tolerable, as far as Floorwish goes. The chorus again gives off late-Tarja-era / Anette-era feel, it reminds me possibly of yet another song (I’m not even sure if a NW song or by a different band altogether), but I’m having a dumb day, so once again I don’t know which one. Again, Marco is sorely missed, on the chorus he’d be perfect. The outro is a bit overlong, but it’s also one of the few moments that feels mostly Floor on the record, so I’ll allow it. In general it’s one of the better songs on the album.
Spider Silk begins as a piano ballad, which by this time on the album felt like a bit too much, although I'd say it sounds really nice on its own. I particularly like Floor's voice here, despite it sounding possibly most idiosyncratically hers so far. The song soon gets going though, thankfully. There's definitely some Tuomas' self-plagiarism, but I'm too lazy to think of the specific song again (it sounds a bit like a radio version of The Poet and the Pendulum, maybe? Which was already a regurgitation of ... eh, I don't remember, whatever). Like I said at the beginning, Kai kinda makes this song for me and I'm vibing with the instrumental part quite well. Again, more of a banger than not, although it might not shine as brightly as the songs from the beginning of the album. And again, that might be merely because it comes in so late. Outro is once again overdone, oh come on already with that.
Hiraeth - okay, this is a ballad for a much longer section of the song (felt like most, from the first listen, but again, I'm going by memory), with frantic and heavier second part. I don't particularly like the melodies/sound in the gentle part, but I don't shudder with revulsion like with Harvest. Also, the soft part could be slightly shorter. The second part (which absolutely slaps) could remain going and not again ground to a halt after a short while with some Troy Troyisms and acoustics and Floorwhispers, but thankfully it starts going again - though in a different direction, it doesn't return to that absolutely invigorating, thrilling section (that might be among my favourite parts of the album, short as it is).
With just a slight tweaks, this could have been a 10/10 song for me, as it is, it's like, good, but not exactly there. Still, 100x better than what I expected from this incarnation of Nightwish.
The Weave - some untrivial vocal lines, some whimsical flutes, overall it's kind of a mess and I don't remember much of it, but that's okay, as the clocks tick off the one-hour mark, we're nearing the bonus track territory anyway.
Lanternlight - Purely title-wise, this was the song I was looking forward the most (I don't know about you, but as the September nears its end, I could definitely use some "lanternlight" meself), and ... well, it's another ballad, and not even the Meadows of Heaven type. Oh, well. It's mostly nice, I guess, gives off these vibes of closing credits oscar bait track from the late 90s, but I suppose Tuomas would take that as a compliment. It's kinda overlong too, but by this time you can either fall asleep (unless you're driving, like I was, heh) or turn off the album. The ending in general reminded me of Gilmour's
On an Island - a nice album, but very much a moody-evening-type one (a "album for a shag" you might say) and not something you'd put on that often, though tasteful.
As of now, I'm thinking possibly 7/10? If this came out in 2015 instead of EFMB
and with Marco to boot, it'd be 8-9/10 at least.
