.:: SanktuariuM ::.

Stoneman pisze:a pojawia sie blasty i growle Tuomasa

Dark Passion Play
Tuomas Holopainen at the wheel

The Poet and the Pendulum
(I - White Lands Of Empathica, II - Hope, III - The Pacific, IV - Dark Passion Play, V - Mother & Father)
A grand, symphonic intro, the clock of doom ticks. The album's first words: "The end. The songwriter's dead. The blade fell upon him".
"The year 2005 was hell and all of the bad feeling is in this song. The song culminates to the speech that begins with the words: "Today in the year of our Lord 2005, Tuomas was called from the cares of the world." Mentioning my own name might sound self-satisfied, but it had to be done like this.
There's truly dark lyrics in the parts Marco screams: spitting on a grave, masturbating on a grave and so on. I had extremaly strongly the feeling that I had to vent everything to this work the way I experienced it. I'd written so rough lyrics for the boy sopranos that at first they came back like a boomerang from the choir leader. He said in his e-mail that we aren't making a sequel to The Exorcist.
The album's name was supposed to be The Poet and the Pendulum, but I changed my mind. Raising one song as the album's name didn't seem to work. And Dark Passion Play has a nice double meaning."

Bye Bye Beautiful
A pretty normal Nightwish-song driven by a strong chorus. If the previous track was about Tuomas, this is about Tarja Turunen.
"The doings of an artist always reflect his real life. This album has three tracks written about that subject. Poet, this and Master Passion Greed. Bye Bye Beautiful is in a way a sister song to Wish I Had an Angel.
I don't actually want to say anything more than this. I don't usually open my lyrics much and specially with this song I want to keep it that way."

Amaranth
The first real single driven by a dempattu (help! no idea what that is) 8 part riff. The end's modulation can be forgiven, since it's preceded by a gruff space which excellently drops to half-tempo.
"The thing I hate most in the music business is picking singles. Well, maybe not the most.. But it's a red cloth. It's wrong to try to raise from more than an hours music portion one part to a plate. It's wrong towards the album, the single and the fans.
There's the anecdote to Amaranth that it was still after the last recordings dropping from the album. And I still think it isn't the elite. Quite a cinderella story: from being the last of the bunch to a single."

Cadence of Her Last Breath
The album's first song with a guitar solo. Contains the lines "Save one breath for me" and "Save one death for me", which are already planned to be slogans on shirts.
"A very personal song even though others don't seem to understand what it's about. There's running away in this. Then having a crush, falling in love and then running away again. The first song from the album I finished. I'm a little terrified if the music has too much of America's metal scene in it.
You guessed in Sävi while listening to the demo that this would be the first single. And it was was nominated. The other band members like Cadence of Her Last Breath more. I think it's an okey song, but not my favourites."

Master Passion Greed
A speed metal riff and tribal like drums. Has the sentence: "Hey Judas, your Christess was our love." The illustration has a woman in flames and above a marionette master's hand.
"Musicly our heaviest song ever. And the album's fourth band song in a row. I guessed right the text's subject and that I did the song with the guitar, not the keyboard.
The singing was first planed 50-50 to Anette and Marco. When the latter saw the lyrics he came to say that he doesn't want to be conceited, but it might be better if he sang the song almost entirely on his own. And Marco was right. It would have been unfair to put the new singer to sing this text."

Eva
All willing can already have heard this Internet-single, that doesn't describe the whole at all. But what happens to Eva in the story?
"When you realize that it's about a girl who is being bullied in school the song opens up as an honest ballad. What comes to the story, her fate is left open on purpose.
If I would have tried to pick a song that describes the whole album, the first song should have been released as a single. But a 14-minute long song isn't good for that job. Hopefully people understand that we just had to choose one. The album's easiest and most simple song."

Sahara
In the beginning a good-quality guitar riff, that suprisingly isn't repeated. In the lyrics happily in a helter-skelter are Elysium's golden fields, The Book of One Thousand and One Nights, ancient mariners and corresponding building blocks of hard rock. Nightwish's Kashmir.
"What could be more of a cliché than a heavy band singing about Egypt's history! One of my favourites. And Marco's. The lyrics are a pure flow of mind trip that have no base in reality. An escapistic dream fantasy of Egypt five thousand years ago.
We put in the verses things we call slave chants. So the men choirs sing with the kettle-drum 'Shah!' and 'Agadaga!' It gives a pretty historical feeling; pulling blocks of stones, the sand rustles under your feet and the sun burns."

Whoever Brings the Night
Emppu Vuorinen's song. Among the insrtuments a cimbalom and the bits of rail that were mentioned in the studioblog. In the beginning a massive choir. In the cover's name picture is preparing to the dance of the seven veils.
"In a way the album's vaguest song, pretty Tim Burton. Emppu brought a demo where I picked the riffs and put them into a new order. The original singing melody was much more complicated, so I straightened it a bit. Not that Anette couldn't have sung it, but it was too curlicued. I like this song so much. The text has a really erotic tone and we had a lot fun making it."

For the Heart I Once Had
A forcible song in Tuomas' basic tempo that is in the middle of the heard heavyness scale. Singing part reminds Nemo.
"The melody does have something same than in Nemo, I admit. Perhaps this song divides opinions the most on this album. For the Heart I Once Had was almost left out, but it found its place.
At some point it felt like we had only done heavy or soft songs. There wouldn't have been anything between without this song, eventhough it isn't the best of the album.
One can't accuse about the same tempos. Every songwriter has his manners. I've in my own opinion avoided the worst clichées and tried different things."

The Islander
Marco Hietala's mostly acoustic song. It has hand drums, wooden flutes and Uilleann pipes, the Irish version of the bagpipes. The album's cover picture takes to Ernest Hemingway's book Man and Sea.
"I would have been ready to raise this to a single if we just hadn't changed our vocalist. So Marco sings most of it. A celtic song he played a few years ago on backstage and saig this doens't really fit Tarot's style. It flashed to me that it's about a lighthouse keeper. So Marco finished the music and I wrote the lyrics.
A small elegy, poem song about a lonely lighthouse keeper. No symbolism, for once straight storytelling. This could be played acousticly on gigs. Again something new: few guys on bar chairs."
Last of the Wilds:
Wild but melancholy song that seems to be placed in Asterix's village's environment and in a time when you drank a barrelfuls of home-brewed beer and not some fancy stuff you drink nowadays. Clearly continuing with The Islander's theme.
"This gives me the feeling of going 1000 years back in time to some tavern, jumping on a table and dancing and playing old fashioned instruments.
Finland-Ireland partying contest. Or a bar fight. Emppu versus violin versus Uilleann pipes. Then Finland lifts her head in the c-part with Kantele. Teasing a bit, but at the end everyone is friends with each other.
Definitely the most positive song on the album. Happened to have one positive day when making the songs. It was nice to make. And we're going to play it live."

7 days to the wolves:
According to my first impression same quality with The Poet and the Pendulum and Master Passion Greed. Thoughts of a 1800's poet Walt Whitman appear in the song.
"The best chorus in the album. And the lyrics really reeks of Walt Whitman. "Leave the city of fools" and "The road less travelled by". I found him (Peter Weir) from the movie Dead poet's society. Whitman has risen next to Edgar Allan Poe to be one of my favourite writers. I have read Leaves of Grass for quite a few times.
The lyrics have a clear message: we are here only once, so remember to live. Carpe diem! The wolves are breathing behind you all the time.

Meadows of Heaven
An atmospheric ballad that starts very intimately, but grows bigger every minute. The picture in the cover booklet is drawn from a photo of Tuomas' childhood home.
"Seven and a half minute long slow song that has gospel choir, gospel solo and pipes. I knew at once that this is the last song of the album. 74 minutes has passed by right when you think you have heard everything, and then a gospel choir falls on your lap.
The warm atmosphere in the recrodings of the choir in Abbey Road gave a lot of energy for us. Even Jukka, who isn't the most pro-religion person, almost got religious watching that. Those people radiated authentic goodness.
I've always wanted to write a song about my childhood but I haven't been able to do it. The subject has scared and haunted me for a really long time."

Mandrake pisze:1. Dark Chest of Wonders
2. The Siren
3. Ever Dream
4. Deep Silent Complete
5. The Kinslayer
6. High Hopes
7. Planet Hell
8. Wishmaster
9. Slaying the Dreamer
10. Nemo
11. Ghost Love Score
12. Wish I had an Angel