Reviewed - 08/27/04

Once
[Nuclear Blast]

When I read that this album would see a U.S. release on Roadrunner of all labels, my surprise was more than just slight. Unless you've been living under a rock the past several years, you'd know by now that Roadrunner has long given up on true metal and has been pumping out crap like Spine Shank and Slapnuts for quite some time. All of a sudden, they're signing real metal bands again, such as Three Inches Of Blood, The Agony Scene, and now Finland's symphonic power metal masters, Nightwish.

Thank God, because if any band deserves the attention they're going to get on such a big label, it's definitely them. Symphonic metal needs a big break in the States and Nightwish would seem like the ideal candidate to bring the genre to a wider audience. With any luck, Nightwish will become as popular in America as they are in Europe.

My favorite track off of Once is Wish I Had An Angel, partially because I like the lyrics and partially because it's the type of song that really gets me moving. The chorus ranks up there with the all time greats. We're talking anthem level here. The underlying techno elements really seemed to work in the song's favor. Another somewhat surprising choice that Nightwish has made on Once was the appearance of John Two-Hawks reading a poem translated into the Lakota language on Creek Mary's Blood. It's strange to hear anything in a Native American language used in a Finnish band's album, but it certainly works.

Speaking of strange, I noticed a distinctly hardcore styled breakdown about two minutes in Romanticide. It was a wonderful thing to hear something like that work so well on an album that features soaring symphonic scores and had about ninety additional musicians playing on it.

All in all, Once is certainly a contender for album of 2004 in my view. It's everything you've come to expect from Nightwish and more. Buy it or forever live with the knowledge that you have poor taste in music.