When I found out that Anette Olzon, the former frontwoman of the Finnish
symphonic metal band Nightwish, joined forces with Jani Liimatainen, who used
to play in another Finnish metal band Sonata Arctica, I was overjoyed. After
her departure from Nightwish and the release of her first solo album, it wasn’t
clear whether she’d ever return to metal music. I was saddened by the idea that
metal music could possibly lose the theatrical and joyful Anette forever, so
you can probably imagine how delighted the formation of The Dark Element made me feel.
The first album was very good – dynamic, catchy and overall interesting
even though there are some things that bother me about the album. But when
their second album was announced, I tried, once again, not to get too excited
about it (which I already explained in the previous review). This album, named
“Songs The Night Sings”, was released this year on November 6 by Frontiers
Music and contains eleven songs in total, including one eponymous song (well,
there can’t be more than one, right?).
If I were to compare this album to its predecessor, the eponymous album
“The Dark Element”, the band’s certainly made some progress. In many of their
older songs, like in “The Ghost And The Reaper” (otherwise a great song), guitars
and keyboards or vocal parts and keyboards share the same melody, so instead of
having some musical depth, all these songs sound rather flat. This somewhat
changed on this new album, even though in some songs you can still hear this
kind of approach (but it’s still significantly better).
Another great thing about “Songs The Night Sings” is Jani Liimatainen’s
ability to write songs exactly for Anette Olzon’s voice and expression, as well
as featuring quite a few exceptional guitar solos. Anette’s singing and voice
have improved even further and matured while still being as emotional and theatrical
as always. Specifically, her voice is even sharper, brighter and stronger than
it has ever been before.
It’s also worth mentioning that many of the songs on the album also
contain some disco and 80’s pop elements. You can actually notice even some
Eurodance elements in the song “Pills On My Pillow”. Not that it’s that
surprising because many melodic metal bands actually implement these elements
into their music quite fondly (with the exception of the Eurodance elements –
that’s new to me, to be honest). Besides disco, 80’s pop and Eurodance elements,
you can also hear some jazz elements on this album. Specifically in the song “I
Have To Go,” which is possibly the most interesting song on the album and
sounds quite a lot like “Slow, Love, Slow” from the band's last album with
Anette as the frontwoman – one of my all-time favourite songs. Only “I Have To
Go” is missing the mysterious atmosphere of an old cabaret the song “Slow,
Love, Slow” has. But I’ll get to this later.
The problems I have with this album are, unfortunately, many. You see, I
had high hopes for this band, so I feel like I can’t just politely ignore these
issues and hope the band will eventually reach its full potential.
Probably the biggest issue I have with “Songs The Night Sings”, is
actually the untapped potential of the songs this album contains. In many cases
interesting dynamic riffs attract your attention, later they evolve into a no
less interesting verse only to eventually disappoint you in the chorus. It’s
almost like Jani Liimatainen had serious problems coming up with yet another
catchy and original chorus for every song, so he just smacked some dramatic
melody here and there, even though this monumental chorus simply won’t fit the
originally dynamic heavy song. This wouldn’t be such a problem if it was
balanced in some way, but without the aforementioned balance, many songs on the
album are just shattered into random bits that at all go well together. This is
a great shame because many songs sound very promising in the beginning, only to
let you down once the chorus hits. This happened even to the song “I Have To
Go” – I was so excited when I heard it for the first time and… And then there
is the chorus that sounds nothing like the intro or verses. In fact, it sounds
kind of like 80’s Eastern European pop songs, while the rest of the song has
very strong jazz elements. Such a great potential lost because of the desire to
create an epic and dramatic chorus. Sure, the melody more or less fits this
time, but unfortunately, it’s the musical arrangement that destroys it.
Speaking of the instrumental accompaniment, there are two things that
“grind my gears”: bass guitar and drums. The bass guitar can be barely heard on
this album because it’s barely noticeable. The drums, on the other hand, are
audible but monotonous and repetitive, which makes the songs often sound rather
schismatic and even flat.
The other problem I noticed as I was listening to the album, was its
repetitiveness. Many songs are very similar to each other and even the songs
from The Dark Element’s first album and I am not talking only about melodies,
but also themes. Every band has some major themes it focuses on all the time
and that’s just fine. However, in the case of The Dark Element it seems that the
choice boils down to these two: love & heartbreaks and “the world is an
ugly hostile place”. Still, this is something that can be forgiven – hey, at
least they’re being consistent, right? What can’t be just ignored, however, is
the musical repetitiveness. I don’t even mind that the songs often sound like
the songs from The Dark Element’s debut album, but it’s the repetitiveness
mixed with catchiness to the point of annoyance that drives me crazy. Catchy
songs? Cool, bring them on! But this stops being fun when you hear this over
and over again. And it’s even worse when it happens in one song (like in
“Silence Between The Words” or “Pills On My Pillow”) and even the key changes
or changes in instrumentation aren’t helpful. This is the reason why I can’t
have this album on repeat (unlike for example “Smutnice” by Silent Stream Of
Godless Elegy, “Black Anima” by Lacuna Coil or “Macro” by Jinjer).
There are some great parts on this album, but they’re frequently
overshadowed by the aforementioned repetitiveness and the lack of atmosphere.
Instead of building an interesting atmosphere, many songs, or rather their
parts, sound way too corny, which can be heard for example in the song “Silence
Between The Words”. Fortunately, it’s not as bad as it is the case of Within
Temptation’s album “Resist” – an album so completely sterile that it could be
used in hospitals instead of disinfectants to fight resistant bacteria.
While this album is not something I’ll be listening to again, I am glad
that “Songs The Night Sings” is receiving such positive feedback from
other critics and reviewers and I don’t want you to discourage you from
listening to this album. Quite the opposite, actually: Go, give it a listen on
Spotify and maybe, if possible, buy it – it’s somethings every band needs
to exist and possibly move forward with their music (to convince even harsh
elitist reviewers like me). Despite my own opinion and a quite harsh critique, I
am convinced that there are many fans of melodic metal that will love this
album.
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