### Nightwish: Dark passion play

#### 13/08/07 || Lord K Philipson

This is going to be such an easy start… Will Sweden’s premiere cocksuckers at Sound Pollution (Nightwish’s distribution here and there) e-mail us once again, asking us to remove the review after I take another piss on Nightwish, if I do? I so fucken hope so becoz that would render us even more years of pointing and laughing at them. I so remember what they, the fucken liplickers at Sound Pollution, wrote us:

“Neither the band, the management or the record label think your review of “Once” is relevant, we suggest you take it down.”

I still suggest all of you to go fuck yourselves, including the fantastically educated fans, known as the elves, after this gorgeous debacle. Read most of what happened in the Hatemail section of this site, a section started thanx to the completely clueless little fairies. They are many in numbers, but have a total IQ of a worn out shoe. Here’s another chance for them troll-panties wearing bitches to send us some e-mails again. We need more material for the hatemail section, cunts. Have at it, losers. Insulted yet? Onwards…

So, the band who once brought us Cumbucket v.01, Tarja Turunen, returns with a new album and Cumbucket v.02. And that is definitely one of the best things that has happened to Nightwish in quite some time, I see that now. I always thought v.01’s vocals were what made Nightwish listenable, but this new chick, Cumbucket v.02, sure puts some longed-for emotion into their music and is, as a whole, a hella lot better and more interesting vocalist than Cumbucket v.01 ever was. Her voice suits what Nightwish is doing better than v.01. Good work with finding this cunt, guys.

So, what can we expect from “Dark passion play” apart from the cheesiest songtitles this side of Switzerland, the always incredibly hideous male vocals, medieval bullshit influences, nice orchestrations, pathetic lyrics, a lot of butter, some squirts of semen and god-awful ballads?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

That’s where Nightwish are at, just as expected. And I don’t mind all that fucken much since this album is at least a small step up from the “Once” jizz-fest (and don’t forget the other version of the review). We are dealt a nice production as well, isn’t that sweet of’em? It would be so easy to take the piss out of this band once again, but “Dark passion play” deserves a little better, even if it’s not much. There are some really nice hooks here and there, especially in “Sahara” (zzz… the titles are just fucken astonishing), the one track I would consider the strongest one on here, mostly thanx to v.02’s fantastically catchy chorus. At other times I get fucken 80’s chick-rock feelings (“Amaranth” occasionally reminds me of Yngwie Malmsteen’s ex-whore Erika’s feeble attempts at a music career). Some of the music that was lost from the movie “Braveheart” can be found in “Meadows of heaven”. This shows the very side of Nightwish that exactly make them fucken suck big time. What is it with these useless ballads that do nothing but bore everyone into small piles of pus? Nope, elves, it’s not “passionate”, “soulful” or “heartwarming”, it’s fucken disgraceful. Absolutely fucken incredible…

“The penis and the pendulum” (now they finally got a good title) kinda swings at times (pendulum… swings… I’m a fucken poet), if you manage to get thru the worthless intro without cutting your arms off with a rusty fork in desperation. Being almost 14 minutes long, they sure have some work to do in here to make it work, and it does – at times. Those dramatic orchestrations sound fine, though Dimmu Borgir do them better, probably becoz they got Satan on their side instead of Harry Potter. Being, as mentioned, 14 minutes long, you can sure as hell expect some useless, slow passages – sounding like they were taken out of “Narnia”. “I’m afraid, I’m so afraid”... Yeah, that’s really a scary passage. “Scary” as in “go blow a goat and take your fucken cartoon lyrics with you” scary. By the way, I hear more Within Temptation in Nightwish these days than they would ever admit to.

There’s no denying that mainman Tuomas Hologramwhatever is one talented bitch, there’s proof for that all over this disc with the clever strings, arrangements and shit. It’s just a shame he feels the urge to include a bunch of shit songs on each and every Nightwish album. This one is no different. Tunes like “The islander” (zzzzz… zzzzzzzzz… zzzzzz…) makes me wanna play “Kill the Zit on Your Penis” with a lawnmower. There are more jewels in this department… “For the heart I once had” (zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…) moves on in its mid-tempo and the cheese and commercial aspect is literally dripping out of my fabulous Cerwin Vega speakers. The ballad “Eva” is quite nice at times. If you are 10 years old and view Dolph Lundgren as the biggest hero in the world. Despite its semi-nice chorus, this is another Fest of Suck. “7 days to the wolves” (did I hear someone go “zzzzz…”?) sounds like the mentioned Within Temptation, only Within Temptation are blessed with not having those goddamned male vocals in their music, making them a hella lot easier to listen to (not to say better). Another one of those bastard tunes that is not a ballad and not mid tempo. Just something in between that goes pretty much nowhere until it picks up in the middle of its 7 minute span.

“Last of the wilds” (don’t forget to zzzznore…) is another “Braveheart” tune which is an instrumental, for whatever reason there may be, and it is a shame since v.02’s vocals are what make this album decent. “Whoever brings the night” (but for fuck’s zzzzzzake…) tries to show the “harder” side of Nightwish (you know there’s no fucken harder side in Nightwish), and fails at it as this tune is completely saying nothing at all. Nice choirs though. “Bye bye beautiful” (fuck yeah, “bye bye” for sure. Bye bye to zzzzztaying awake) is graced with the phenomenal male vocals and a PAIN-ish approach at times. Not completely shabby, except for those mentioned vocals. “Cadence of her last breath” is one of the stronger tunes on “Dark passion play”. This I dig, together with “Sahara”. Fantastically catchy chorus and verse. Nice work, v.02. “Master passion greed” was probably written with the intention of sounding like Hatebreed (or whatever semi-hard shit band you prefer) but ended up sounding like this, becoz it’s Nightwish. Irrelevant tune and the male vocals (that play the biggest part in this one) don’t exactly help matters, go figure. Nice dramatic ending though.

As you can see, there are a few good tunes here mixed up with a majority of boring ones, but nonetheless this is, as mentioned, a hella lot better than “Once”. The problem though is that as long as Tuomas decides to include all these shit songs on each and every album nowadays, Nightwish and their fairytale “metal” will continue to fail with me. One last thing though before I wrap this up:

Cumbucket v.01 vs. Cumbucket v.02 = 0-1.

5 now crying Nighwish fans out of 10. I hope you all fucken die in a hotel fire.

- Information
- Released: 2007
- Label: Spikefarm
- Website: www.nightwish.com
- Band
- Annette Olzon: vocals
- Marco Hietala: bass, terrible vocals
- Tuomas Holopainen: keyboards
- Emppu Vuorinen: guitars
- Jukka Nevalainen: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. The Poet And The Pendulum
- 02. Bye Bye Beautiful
- 03. Amaranth
- 04. Cadence Of Her Last Breath
- 05. Master Passion Greed
- 06. Eva
- 07. Sahara
- 08. Whoever Brings The Night
- 09. For The Heart I Once Had
- 10. The Islander
- 11. Last Of The Wilds
- 12. 7 Days To The Wolves
- 13. Meadows Of Heaven