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Looking back, this could have been viewed at the time as the make or break moment for NIGHTWISH. Nearly a decade on from the acrimonious firing of former vocalist Tarja Turunen, the Finnish symphonic giants had faltered with Annette Olsen at the helm – not that she or the band were truly at fault.
Much like other vocalists who replaced a big name – and we could be here all day naming them – Olsen faced significant criticism and adversity from the band’s fanbase, at one show in Brazil even leaving the stage in tears after just six songs due to the abuse she was receiving. Neither album she recorded with the band was awful – both 2007’s Dark Passion Play and 2011’s Imaginaerum have some excellent moments – but it was apparent this was not a marriage destined to last. “The one time the band seem genuinely at ease” wrote Jerry Ewing in Metal Hammer about the band’s 2009 gig at Brixton Academy “is when, with Anette absent from the stage, they link up for an instrumental jam and actually appear to start enjoying themselves.”
It was therefore unsurprising that Olsen and the band parted ways in November 2012, just one month after Imaginaerum’s release. Coming into the fold as cover was Floor Jansen, best known at the time for singing with Dutch outfits AFTER FOREVER and RE-VAMP. She would complete the band’s touring commitments for that year and the next, before being announced as permanent lead singer in October 2013, with long-time touring member Troy Donockley also being brought into the fold. From the jaws of despair and uncertainty, NIGHTWISH now had new hope, entering the studio in 2014 to record their eighth studio album.
“The previous album was a tribute to the power of imagination…[this] would be an equal tribute to science and the power of reason” NIGHTWISH main man Tuomas Holopainen would say in the run up to the album’s release, titled Endless Forms Most Beautiful. Although not a concept album, much of the record was inspired by the work of naturalist Charles Darwin, the title taken from the final paragraph of his world-renowned book on evolution, On the Origin of Species. “It’s all about the beauty of life, existence, nature, science” Holopainen would explain in the same interview to EMP RockInvasion, and that he would also like fans to listen to the album from beginning to end, rather than random songs.
Holopainen, alongside bassist Marko Hietala and audio engineer Tero ‘TeeCee’ Kinnunen, would record a 12-song demo from April to May of 2014, with the full band rehearsing at Röskö Campsite and recording mostly at Petrax, both in their native Finland. However, just prior to recording beginning, drummer Jukka Nevalainen stepped aside as a performer due to his ongoing battle with insomnia, with longtime friend Kai Hahto of WINTERSUN and SWALLOW THE SUN deputising; Hahto would join the band permanently in 2019.
Alongside Darwin, the album also took inspiration from biologist Richard Dawkins, specifically his 2009 book The Greatest Show On Earth: The Evidence For Evolution, which would lend its name to the epic, 24-minute closing track. Indeed, Dawkins would provide spoken word vocals on the album: Tuomas wrote him a handwritten letter explaining the vision and, two weeks later, Dawkins would accept. “I hadn’t heard of them before the letter arrived” he confessed to The New Statesman “but I was interested, I was intrigued and fascinated…I was pleased to do it.” Dawkins would later appear onstage with the band at Wembley Arena in London, a concert captured for the DVD Vehicle of Spirit.
Endless Forms Most Beautiful saw NIGHTWISH strike a perfect balance between the high end, operatic metal they had delivered with Tarja as vocalist and the more accessible, rock-oriented sound of Anette’s tenure, helped out in no small part by Floor Jansen’s incredible range and ability to sing both with consummate ease. The opening duo of Shudder Before the Beautiful and Weak Fantasy proved this, the former a more classic-sounding NIGHTWISH with a soaring chorus, the latter a fist-pumping anthem with added teeth. Floor would even display an impressive ability to death growl on Yours Is An Empty Hope.
Vocalist aside, this is also arguably NIGHTWISH’s most complete album, portraying everything they’ve been known to do musically without compromise. The sparkling Élan and understated My Walden are playful and tap into the band’s folkier side, the catchy Edema Ruh provides a goth rock edge and Our Decades in the Sun is a vulnerable, almost lullaby-esque ballad, floating through with serene grace and beautiful frailty.
The Greatest Show On Earth, however, is not only the stand out track, but is also in contention for being the band’s best ever song – its title may have been considered too ‘pompous’ for the album overall by Tuomas, but it more than fits the track: a grandiose extravaganza across five distinct chapters that twists and turns effortlessly and doesn’t just close the album in the perfect manner, but has also done the same for NIGHTWISH’s live shows since its release, albeit in a shorter version; it’s only seventeen minutes long, here!
Released ten years ago on March 25th 2015, Endless Forms Most Beautiful garnered critical acclaim and excellent chart positions across the world and proved NIGHTWISH’s demise had very much been exaggerated. Rejuvenated and re-energised, their status as torchbearers for the world of symphonic metal wasn’t just cemented again; it was made insurmountable.
Endless Forms Most Beautiful was originally released on March 25th, 2015 via Nuclear Blast Records.
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