What IS an Amaranth, anyhow?!

Prompted by the recent announcement of the first bands lined up to be playing at this year’s Metalcamp, I convinced myself it would be a good idea to listen to the new Nightwish album.

I call it ‘new’ – actually, Dark Passion Play came out in 2005. That’s how long I’ve been resisting change. Basically, they kicked out their first singer, the lovely, man-jawed and (apparently) commercially-focused Tarja, to replace her with a new, non-operatic singer. I remained convinced for the last four years (has it really been that long?!) that the operatic aspect of Nightwish was what distinguised them from all the other nondescript female-fronted symphonic metal bands (that, and the jaw), and that if I listened to this new album I would inevitably be disappointed.

Then I thought, nothing could possibly disappoint me more than the new Metallica album, so I’ll give it a go. How bad can it be?

As it transpires, not that bad. Tuomas is still writing the vast majority of the music, as far as I’m aware, and so the non-vocal aspects of the tracks have retained the same high quality, and the new singer really isn’t that terrible. She’s ideal for the new direction they’ve taken, although I’ll maintain that the operatic aspect is a loss, and that the new style is a little too dull and commercial sounding for me – but my ‘dull and commercial’ is probably someone else’s ‘accessible and easy-to-listen-to’ so it’s not a criticism per-se.

What IS a criticism is that thing she does with her head in the video for Amaranth. I HATE it.