Four years after the moronically titled Human. :II: Nature., Nightwish is back with Yesterwynde, which rolls a bit easier off the tongue. After two ok-ish albums with Floor Jansen, can the third time finally be the charm? Let’s find out.
Human II Nature, to immediately cast aside its ridiculous and overwrought stylization, was a disappointment, if you can remember. I hardly remembered anything about the damned thing until I recently dusted it off in preparation for the upcoming and now-released Yesterwynde. What vague memories I had were of a Hamster Heart, a hit-and-miss collection of good to middling songs and a symphonic suite no one but Tuomas Holopainen has listened to more than once. Suffice to say it wasn’t that good and has rarely seen any repeat rotation from my end.
So now we have Yesterwynde, which is already a better title than Human Two Nature, but only by a slight margin. The singles they released ahead of this album already put off everyone who hates children’s choirs. And not normal children’s choirs, but the English boarding school ones who sound a lot more posh than the others and over enunciate every single syllable, like those creepy kids in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. You know the ones, right at the beginning, with the very punchable faces. Anyway, Perfume of the Timeless, the first single, is a perfectly fine song on its own with a wonderful chorus, but with a very annoying middle part where Holopainen goes full Danny Elfman again, which adds nothing except irritation. The song effectively ends after six minutes if it were not for Troy dragging things along with some harping and mumbling. Not a good first impression.
The second single, The Day Of…, fares even worse. Here we aren’t only treated to the same fucking children’s choir; no, it is the key ingredient this time. It did nothing for me on the first listen and it still isn’t a favourite but I begrudgingly admit that it works better in the context of the album than on its own. The third single, which is basically the opening track for Yesterwynde if you forget about the obligatory intro that is the title track, is where things were finally getting serious again. An Ocean of Strange Islands is easily the best Nightwish song this side of 2011’s Imaginaerum. That’s almost twenty-three years, let that sink in for a bit. It’s concise, it’s heavy, there’s some powerful drumming, Emppu finally gets to do some guitar playing again and Floor gives a stellar performance. An Ocean of Strange Islands is upbeat, fun and could easily have been on either albums they did with Annette, which is when Nightwish was at its creative peak (I’ll die on that hill). It’s a rousing start to Yesterwynde and also its biggest highlight. It’s a shame then that Troy drags it on for two useless minutes at the end with his uilleann pipes. The song didn’t need that and it robs it of its sense of immediacy.
Other highlights on Yesterwynde are the fun, bombastic The Children of ‘Ata with its Tongan singing and great hooks, the slow and brooding Something Whispered Follow Me and the amazing Hiraeth, which builds up to a grand finale which, ironically after complaining about songs dragging on, does not last long enough. It could have been built up even more, even louder, like that blistering live version of Steve Hackett’s Shadow of the Hierophant where you can feel the music resonate in every fibre of your body. It’s a shame then that Yesterwynde also has a number of songs that drag down the overall quality. The Weave, with its musical themes that are clearly ”inspired” by Edvard Grieg’s In the Hall of the Mountain King quickly turns to annoying repetition and features one of those faux creepy Danny Elfman children’s choir bits that only Holopainen still likes by now. Spider Silk is an alright track but nothing more and Sway is an unremarkable ballad that breaks any momentum the album had, and should have been left on the cutting room floor. The same perhaps goes for Lanternlight, a ballad that is a little too syrup-y for its own good and ends the album with a melancholic whimper instead of a bang.
Yesterwynde is not the horror I dreaded; the quadruple album where two discs would have to be played simultaneously for full effect. It is also, however, not the long awaited step back to greatness. It is without a doubt the best album they’ve done with Floor on vocals, and it’s a shame then that she is buried in the mix, where everything and anything is fighting for attention, because out of the three albums this one features her best vocal work. Production-wise, this is a dense album with too many things happening at the same time. Yesterwynde is much. Then again, it’s also a perfectly passable Nightwish album with some songs that actually makes the purchase worth it, which wasn’t the case with Too Human To Nature. Try it out at your own risk of course, but this one at least finally features a few actual good songs again.
Label: Nuclear Blast
Buy it here: https://www.backstagerockshop.com/collections/nightwish?ls=en
Track listing:
- Yesterwynde (02:43)
- An Ocean of Strange Islands (09:26)
- The Antikythera Mechanism (05:55)
- The Day of… (04:34)
- Perfume of the Timeless (08:11)
- Sway (04:23)
- The Children of ‘Ata (05:37)
- Something Whispered Follow Me (06:39)
- Spider Silk (06:26)
- Hiraeth (06:14)
- The Weave (04:53)
- Lanternlight (06:06)
Line-up:
- Floor Jansen – vocals
- Emppu Vuorinen – guitars
- Tuomas Holopainen – keyboards
- Troy Donockley – uilleann pipes, guitars, low whistles, bouzouki, bodhrán, aerophone, vocals
- Jukka Koskinen – bass
- Kai Hahto – drums, percussion
Review by RP
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