Nightwish - Imaginaerum (2LP) - Clear w/White & Gold Splatter Vinyl

Nightwish’s seventh album, Imaginaerum, arrived in late 2011 as a grand, slightly mad carnival of ideas, and it still feels like a world you can step into. Tuomas Holopainen’s symphonic vision had already stretched big on Once and Dark Passion Play, but here he folds in the sweep of film, fairytales and childhood fears, then ties it to the band’s sharpest songwriting of the Anette Olzon era. It was released through Spinefarm and Nuclear Blast at the end of 2011, with a US date following early 2012, and the timing felt apt. It sounds like winter lights and theatre drapes, heavy boots kicking up snow.

The album starts with “Taikatalvi”, a brief, twinkling prologue sung in Finnish by Marco Hietala, and it’s like the curtain being pulled. Then “Storytime” crashes in with clockwork precision, choral blasts and Olzon sailing over the top. As a lead single it worked because it’s pure Nightwish, but with a brighter, almost childlike rush that suits the album’s theme. “Ghost River” answers with grit. Marco’s bellow and Olzon’s clear tone play tug of war while choirs crack open the chorus. The arrangement never sits still. That restlessness is the point.

For all the orchestra and choir, Imaginaerum lives or dies on songs. “I Want My Tears Back” has become a fan favourite for good reason. Troy Donockley’s uilleann pipes and whistles turn the jig into a gallop, and the call and response vocal hooks make it a live detonator. “Turn Loose the Mermaids” takes the Celtic thread softer, a fireside ballad with a taste of Ennio Morricone in its melody. “Slow, Love, Slow” is the left turn that stuns. A smoky jazz lounge number, brushed drums and muted guitar, Olzon in torch-singer mode. It should not work on a symphonic metal record, yet it does, and it gives the album a human heartbeat between the bigger set pieces.

Those set pieces are still the draw. “Scaretale” struts in like a crooked ringmaster, with carnivalesque strings and childlike voices that twist the melody into something gleefully wicked. “Song of Myself” stretches past ten minutes, borrowing lines from Walt Whitman as spoken word passages drift through the final movement. It is indulgent, but it earns the sprawl, swelling to a finale that feels like a farewell to the character at the centre of the story. Then the instrumental “Imaginaerum” circles back through earlier themes, a cinematic curtain call that makes sense once you learn this album was conceived alongside the feature film of the same name, directed by Stobe Harju and released the following year.

The production is lavish without turning to mush. Longtime mixer Mikko Karmila gives the guitars bite and keeps Jukka Nevalainen’s kick drum punchy, while Mika Jussila’s mastering at Finnvox holds the whole thing together at volume. Pip Williams’ orchestral arrangements were tracked in London with choir and session players, and you can hear the care in how strings tuck under Emppu Vuorinen’s riffs, or how brass hits line up with the drums. It is big-budget symphonic metal that still feels like a band playing.

Olzon deserves special mention. Imaginaerum is her finest Nightwish performance, nimble and warm, capable of cutting through the densest passages without losing character. Hietala anchors things with that weathered snarl and tasteful bass lines, and Holopainen’s keys colour everything without crowding it. Donockley’s parts are used like spices, bright and aromatic. The album also became a hinge in the band’s history. The Imaginaerum World Tour rolled into 2012 and Olzon exited mid-run, with Floor Jansen stepping in and later joining full-time. Knowing that, the record plays like the closing chapter of one era and the setup for the next.

Spin it on a good system and the layering rewards attention. On Imaginaerum vinyl, “Slow, Love, Slow” breathes in a way the digital release sometimes pinches, and the low end on “Ghost River” blooms nicely. If you are crate-digging in a Melbourne record store, or browsing vinyl records Australia wide, keep an eye out for clean copies. Nightwish albums on vinyl hardly sit long on shelves. If you prefer to buy Nightwish records online, this one is worth prioritising. It captures the band at their most playful and ambitious, marrying blockbuster scale to folk charm and a generous pinch of theatre. Nightwish vinyl can be a rabbit hole, but Imaginaerum is the record that turns that hole into a fully built funhouse.