Well it's been a while coming, and the end results of Tarja's first proper non-purely-classical/operatic album can be seen on the right. The Finnish Ice Queen returns with something that - unsurprisingly - sounds more than a little like Nightwish, the band she unceremoniously departed two years ago. She has her fans and her detractors, but does it stand up to the task? Read JBA's review, check the songs out in the links and embedded video, and see what you think for yourself.
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Bulldog disagrees with Bon's choice of best track, with a preference for the powerful yet haunting "Die Alive".
Tarja Turunen - "My Winter Storm" album review
review by JohnBonhamAtron of Ri-Vol-Ver
Anybody who follows the band Nightwish will surely have heard their newest album, Dark Passion Play, and will surely also know that before recording it, they sacked their singer. Yup, after bleedin’ years, ol’ Tarja got the boot. It was a pretty much foregone conclusion she wasn’t gonna stay quiet, though, with a voice like that. I have to admit, I wasn’t too sure about how good a solo album would be, given just how much I liked her in Nightwish. So, when I started listening to this album, I was a bit wary. Would it rock like Nightwish did, or would it be shite? Yes, it rocks as much as Nightwish did, but if anything, she’s gone and taken herself in an even more epic direction. Imagine Nightwish if they decided to do some weird orchestral prog rock thing, with bloody dark sections, and then separate all the big heavy rock tracks and melancholy ballads with little orchestral bits.
It works well, and it’s definitely an album to crank
up loud, turn the lights out and sit there in darkness nodding your head to the beat. If there’s one complaint, it’s that the whole thing sounds a bit too Nightwish… and there lies the album’s main problem. By going too Nightwish-y, it’s immediately setting itself up for comparisons with her earlier work with them, and well, things don’t come out too well. Nightwish as a whole were better songwriters than Tarja on her own, from what’s on display here, and the whole thing doesn’t have the same passion or feeling that an album like Once did. There’s nothing wrong with Tarja’s voice, it’s just that… well the whole thing doesn’t feel as epic and enormous as it should. That’s not to say it’s bad, it’s just… well, it’s not the sheer genius I’d hoped for.
Tarja - "I Walk Alone"
Standing on its own, it’s a bloody good orchestrally metally album, but it’s inevitable it’s going to get compared to her work with Nightwish (which probably isn’t fair, but then, that’s life), and THAT’s where it comes a bit unstuck. It feels like there’s something missing, but I’m buggered if I can work out what it is. All the elements are there, but somehow, it just doesn’t manage to come together to make the mind-blower I was hoping for. Which is a REAL shame, as when you get to the good tracks, they are damn good. It’s just a pity there aren’t more of them.
Tarja - "Die Alive "
Plus, it’s hard getting used to Tarja without a mad Scandinavian bass player screaming behind her with scary eyes… Standout tracks are My Little Phoenix (nicely complicated and dark masterpiece), The Reign (massively overblown orchestral wonderfulness) and Northern Star (that has a chord progression that just sent shivers up my spine). Skip over the cover of Alice Cooper’s Poison, though. Fair play to ‘em for trying, but something just sounds off with it. I think they fiddled with the tune a bit, and it backfired… 3/5
reviewd by JohnBonhamAtron
NoiseMatters rated:
(3/5)
