I have no shame! WLB Review

Shame is for the weak and... shameful... or something.... Anyway the benefit of no shame is not losing sleep over some shameless advertising!

It just so happens that one of my wonderful, and dare I say slightly handsome, colleagues has given into my constant nagging and finally gave in to reviewing WLB. I think it's a pretty fair review, but of course I would say that. Feel free to comment here, or on the site (free cookie for anyone who comments on the site*) and let us know what you think of the review, why not take some time to look around and see if anything else takes your fancy while you're there.

Link is in my sig, or for the ultra lazy you can click HERE.

Don't want to navigate away from the forum? I don't blame you, here's the opening hundred words or so to lure you over....

Quote :

Released on 1 September in Finland, 3 September in Germany, Switzerland and Austria and in the rest of the world on 6 September (except North America and Brazil who didn’t get it until 14 September) on the Universal label, What Lies Beneath is the third studio album from Ex-Nightwish vocalist Tarja Turunen. So is this latest offering a soaring operatic-metal masterpiece or crossover cheese-fest. Continue dear reader and we may just find out.

I have a confession to make, I have never really succumbed to operatic metal. It may stem back to my experiences with the hideously overplayed Evanescence, and yes, I know that’s an overused comparison for the style but ever since then I have never really been able to take the genre seriously. However, a few moments at the mercy of Tarja’s voice and it becomes clear that another Amy Lee she is not. Read More...

Like what you've read? Digg it, or Reddit it, links are at the bottom of the page. Thank god I have a good relationship with Naiad, because this is kinda pushing the limits of advertising....

*Limit 1 cookie per customer, cookie will be available for collection from your browser history. JustSandN reserves the right to eat all the real cookies and lure you in with false hope.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! it's indeed a very shameless way of advertising your site .
Too bad I'm deadly curious... gonna check the review now (it better be the best review EVER, or you'll be punished!! )

well, I am just going to say one thing (I mean no offence)

I am fed up with people comparing Tarja to NW

I fully disagree with his opinion on the Whitesnake's cover, too

hehe

Ok, just read it, didn't liked it, want my money back (¿?) .
I'm kidding, is not a bad review but I completely disagree abouty.. mmhh... almost everything I loved the tags though .
But was it necessary to make a whole new thread to post it? you could have posted it on the "What Lies Beneath" thread, so we could ignore it more easily .

Thanks for taking the time to read it either way. I can't really comment on the content too much, but of course I'm going to have to stand by Denial's opinion on this.

I haven't actually listened to the album *ahem* so I'm not sure about the Whitesnake cover, but I think that it is nigh on impossible to mention Tarja without bringing up NW. Personally I agree that an artist should stand on their individual merits and not on those of the group that they may have come from, but for a large portion of the world Tarja is still "the chick from Nightwish", and it's only natural and fitting to tie a statement back to a known quantity for justification.

That said the beautiful thing about all art is that it's subjective, I think if you look back over some of Denials other posts you can get a feel for the sort of music that he tends to favour.

Haha, wow I certainly dont mean to rant, and I'm not trying to say that anyones opinion is wrong, since y'know opinions can't be wrong. I am truly thankful you took the time to read it and comment.

Jimi B, thanks for the link to this review.
After reading it i had a feeling that this reviewer stole my thoughts although i disagree with him that 'Still of the Night' is bad, in my opinion it's not bad but a average cover, i guess that has something to do with the fact that i'm not really a Whitesnake fan...:-(

About the reviewer, i agree with him when he writes that in general the guitars are overwhelming, it's of course a personal opinion or taste if you like it or not.
For myself i really like the overwhelming guitars because it makes the album also bombastic and i think that this is truly a part of the so-called Operatic- and Symphonic metal...
What he wrote about 'Underneath' is definitely correct, this is my favorite song of WLB, it seems to be a simple song but it's really layered in a emotional way, you must 'feel' it to believe it....

There is a strange thing on WLB, if you listen to 'Naiad' and 'the Archives of Lost Dreams' it is clear these songs are ONE story
but the story of 'tAoLD' begins after 'Naiad' so why isn't 'Naiad' on the first disc and 'tAoLD' straight after it!
It wouldn't surprise me at all if Universal has played a dirty trick ..... again, the buyers of the 1-disc album only have the half-story...... the second part...

I have send an email to Universal about this 'strange thing', unfortunately they haven't responded .... yet...

Of course I understand that Tarja will always be labeled as the Nightwish chick, because this kind of constant connection with the past happens to Nightwish as well: they'll always be "the band with a classical singer on vocals" for most of the world (even though they nearly have no singer at all nowadays ).
About the review... was not a bad one to be honest, I just disagreed with the guy about several points, which doesn't mean I think his opinion is crap, I merely have a different one, that's all .
And, well... if he's not very much into classical related music it'll be pretty much impossible for him to feel impressed by Tarja's wrok, that's for sure.

I've never got what's supposed to be "operatic" or "metal" about Evanescence. At all.

Anyway, it's a rather generic review to be entirely honest (although at least it wasn't like "omg the songwriting sucks, get a real songwriter"). The complaints about the guitar lines and the Whitesnake cover (yawn) are particularly funny coming from someone who seems to be much more into indie/alternative/modern rock than classic rock/hard rock/metal, and even curious comparing her musicians to the "amazing musicians" in her old band (really?! last time I checked Emppu was nothing like a guitar virtuoso, certainly not lately - indeed a lot of metal fans say he's always been horrible, he's just played some catchy but easy and not terribly original melodies -, nor Marco an outstanding bassist or Jukka an amazing drummer - and Tuomas, while pretty skilled, is not amazing, or even that original, just awfully overrated -, as opposed to the league that, say, Mike Terrana, Will Calhoun or Doug Wimbish play in). No remarkable or original insights in this review. On the other hand, the reviews on Metal Archives are much more positive than this so far. Just pointing this out

Almagest wrote:

I've never got what's supposed to be "operatic" or "metal" about Evanescence. At all.

Anyway, it's a rather generic review to be entirely honest (although at least it wasn't like "omg the songwriting sucks, get a real songwriter"). The complaints about the guitar lines and the Whitesnake cover (yawn) are particularly funny coming from someone who seems to be much more into indie/alternative/modern rock than classic rock/hard rock/metal, and even curious comparing her musicians to the "amazing musicians" in her old band (really?! last time I checked Emppu was nothing like a guitar virtuoso, certainly not lately - indeed a lot of metal fans say he's always been horrible, he's just played some catchy melodies -, nor Marco an outstanding bassist or Jukka an amazing drummer, as opposed to the league that, say, Mike Terrana, Will Calhoun or Doug Wimbish play in). On the other hand, the reviews on Metal Archives are much more positive than this so far.

I agree wholeheartedly.

I've seen a lot of metal fans trash Tarja for "murdering" Over the Hills and Far Away lately, even though that cover was note-by-note identical to the original ... I don't get it.

Almagest wrote:

I've never got what's supposed to be "operatic" or "metal" about Evanescence. At all.

Anyway, it's a rather generic review to be entirely honest (although at least it wasn't like "omg the songwriting sucks, get a real songwriter"). The complaints about the guitar lines and the Whitesnake cover (yawn) are particularly funny coming from someone who seems to be much more into indie/alternative/modern rock than classic rock/hard rock/metal, and even curious comparing her musicians to the "amazing musicians" in her old band (really?! last time I checked Emppu was nothing like a guitar virtuoso, certainly not lately - indeed a lot of metal fans say he's always been horrible, he's just played some catchy but easy and not terribly original melodies -, nor Marco an outstanding bassist or Jukka an amazing drummer - and Tuomas, while pretty skilled, is not amazing, or even that original, just awfully overrated -, as opposed to the league that, say, Mike Terrana, Will Calhoun or Doug Wimbish play in). No remarkable or original insights in this review. On the other hand, the reviews on Metal Archives are much more positive than this so far. Just pointing this out