Artist name: Nightwish
Album name: Dark Passion Play
Label: Nuclear Blast/Roadrunner Records
Gender: Symphonic Metal
Release date: September 26, 2007
ZMErating: 8/10
Website: http://www.nightwish.com/

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Three years have passed since the previous release of the band. In 2004 the finnish quartet gave Tarja Turunen over 60 minutes material which is more than hard to play; it was so hard it could break the neck of almost any mezzo-soprano in the studio and she sang it in concerts with the smoke and the effects and the screaming crowd right in front of her. So she began distancing herself from the band and she was more or less fired. Then the media started doing its thing and wrote more or less true things about that and rivers of teenage tears flew downstream. Then they had to find a new singer and they located Annete Olzon.

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Tags: annete-olzon, Dark-Passion-Play, Marco-Hietala, nightwish

This is a few months late but the point here is not to talk about the single itself but how the talented Anette Olzon is able to replace the almost legendary Tarja Turunen; she was asked more or less politely to leave the band in October 2005. Having listened to every track they recorded and admiring their work it is hard to not talk about that.

So after about a long search lasting not far off a year and a half, with around 2000 demos from all over the world they selected Swedish Anette Olzon. She has a style which is in many ways different than her predecessor. There is no doubt that the classically trained Tarja can reach notes in a way that Anette can not but that is not the problem. The thing is that for the first time Nightwish is sounding happy and catchy. Amaranth is a very good piece of work but it is just not fully their style. They are back but they are not bigger, better and more beautiful than they have ever been.

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Tags: Anette-Olzon, Dark-Passion-Play, nightwish, Tarja-Turunen