I never really knew much about Nightwish until I participated in a heated chat debate regarding the merits of Lacuna Coil versus Evanescence (i.e. who was better, who came first, etc.).  At one point someone interjected, "Yeah, but Nightwish is better than both of them."

   Being as how I like both Lacuna Coil and Evanescence, and Nightwish was being compared even more favorably than either, I thought I'd hit up the p2p network and see what was up.  I downloaded a few songs off of Century Child (their most recent album at the time) and thought they were okay, but nothing too great.  Off Nightwish went to languish in GG obscurity for the next several months.

   Then one day, "Ever Dream" was playing on my MP3 player, and I was like, "Dude, this *rips*!"  I queued up the other three songs I had in my library and listened intensely at the majesty, power and beauty they contained.  It was totally amazing.

   (By the by, this isn't the first time that a band had to take a while to get my attention.  Both Killswitch Engage and Maaya Sakamoto had to percolate for about a year before they totally clicked with me.  While those are the most recent examples, I've sometimes pulled out an album that I didn't much like when I purchased it, throw it in the CD player and be floored by whatever it was that I didn't notice the first time around.  Either that, or I just wasn't "ready" to hear them yet.  Digression over.)

   So I surfed over to Djangos and wound up buying a used copy of Century Child.  The opening one-two punch of "Bless the Child" and "End of All Hope" got me hooked and I just spun the bejeezus out of Century Child for the next several weeks.  Meanwhile, Nightwish's new album Once was eating up the charts all over Europe, with lead single "Nemo" heading the charge.  Which is no wonder considering "Nemo" embodies all that is good about Nightwish:  the enchanting and dynamic vocals of Tarja Turunen, the stellar songwriting of Tuomas Halopainen all wrapped up nicely in a package of crunchy, tight Euro-metal.

   As I mentioned in an earlier DotU, Once is Nightwish's most "metal metal" album to date.  Both Century Child and Wishmaster are a little heavy on the theatrics, while their debut Angels Fall First is just a mish-mash of styles from a band trying to find their sound.  Oceanborn comes closest, but the ferocity of Once sends it scurrying back into the shadows.

  "Wish I Had An Angel" pumps with a strong electronica backbone, "The Siren" shows that you can seamlessly blend six-stringers with string orchestras, "Planet Hell" and "Romanticide" attack with swarms of double-bass drums, aggressive male vocals and NWOSDM guitarwork and the epic "Creek Mary's Blood" is as haunting and memorable as sleeping in a Native American burial ground.  Of course, there are some softer moments, like the sweeping "Kuolema Tekee Taiteilijan" (sung entirely in Finnish) and the acoustic "Higher Than Hope."  The pacing of the album is such that it never gets dull and repetitive or too much to handle.

   So were the original comparisons to Lacuna Coil and Evanescence warranted?  Well, kind of, considering that they're all female-fronted metal bands.  But then again, so are Arch Enemy, Walls of Jericho and Undying, but there's no way you could compare them to Nightwish stylistically.  Besides, Lacuna Coil rely on the dual vocals of Cristina Scabbia and Andrea and Evanescence has a very polished, Americanized "watered-down-and-packaged-for-your-consumption" sound.  Of the bands I've heard, Denmark's Within Temptation sounds the most similar to Nightwish, but this isn't a dissertation on fe-metal, it's a review of Once, a damn fine album from a band who--with the backing of a rejuvenated Roadrunner Records--will get their chance to make their mark on the American populace.

Rating:  Uskomaton! out of 10