Imaginaerum - The Score

Imaginearum is a quite creative movie conceived by Nightwish mastermind Tuomas Holopainen that I would recommend you to watch. This release is the score of said film. While other bands or artists who make movies, most recently Bruce Dickinson and X Japan to just give two popular examples, use songs from their regular studio albums and cheaply compile them to so-called soundtracks, this score has something better to offer.

The songs are influenced by the preceding studio album Imaginearum. The themes of the different songs can be found in the thirteen songs of this score. However, one doesn't get bland instrumental versions of the original symphonic metal songs. Instead, one gets atmospheric, creative and diversified orchestral music that sounds surprisingly stripped-down by Nightwish's own standards. The tracks support the movie's atmospheric visuals in the first place which means that straight-forward bombast is missing here. Since the album combines classical orchestral music with a few choirs, keyboard samples and occasional Irish folk sounds, this release can't even be categorized as symphonic metal. As far as I know, only the particularly dramatic ''I Have to Let You Go'' that goes back to ''Last Ride of the Day'' includes a few electric guitar sounds.

Still, this score will keep you entertained from start to finish if you like soundtracks as it offers splendid diversity and clever references to Nightwish's original music from the last album. The dreamy ''Orphanage Airlines'' that smoothly references the catchy ''Storytime'' is a first highlight that invites you to dream yourself far away. The album also includes some more rhythmic and vivid tracks like ''A Crackling Sphere'' which takes its inspiration from ''Arabesque''. ''Deeper Down'', which is closely inspired by ''The Crow, the Owl and the Dove'', is the only track featuring soothing vocals by Anette Olzon and Marco Hietala but the track blends in perfectly with the other twelve songs because it respects the soundtrack's dreamy and stripped-down atmosphere. The vocals are only used as if they were additional instruments which makes them work splendidly.

I am certainly not a fan of all the ambitious projects Nightwish has accomplished thus far. Endless Forms Most Beautiful felt bloated and the compilation Decades was completely useless. However, Nightwish's creative movie Imaginaerum and its dreamy score should get more attention and praise. It will not only please to fans of the band but to anyone who likes musical fantasy movies with an enigmatic touch. Petri Alanko managed to keep the spirit of the original Nightwish songs and transform them into timeless orchestral music with depth. Ignore the negative reviews and join a ride full of imagination.

Everything about this listening experience is surreal. I'm listening to an album written for a movie. A movie written by a band. Whose chief influence is movie soundtracks. The cover for Imaginaerum: The Score depicts what I'm guessing is Dobby from the Harry Potter series walking in the snow to a building. A building with no cars, yet one of the lights is lit. Despite the ground being covered with snow, the trees seem immune to snow buildup. The 'o' in 'Score' is a keyhole, why again? It doesn't look like an 'o'. And why is the movie labeled as being only by Nightwish? Did they do all the camerawork and filming themselves? Did the film crew join the band?

But the most important question here is this: If the movie's soundtrack was just going to be stripped-down orchestral versions of the songs from Imaginaerum, then WHY THE FUCK WOULDN'T YOU USE THE STRIPPED-DOWN ORCHESTRAL VERSIONS OF THE SONGS YOU GUYS ALREADY PUT ON THE SPECIAL EDITION OF THE ORIGINAL ALBUM?!

Is this real? Am I on "Punk'd" here? Is this just the result of a bad acid trip? If so, when the hell could I ever afford any acid on which to trip? Someone please help me! My blind affection for Nightwish is being tested by this obnoxiously pointless soundtrack!

Just to get it out of the way, here are the few good points The Score offers: "Wonderfields," "Deeper Down," and "From G to E Minor." "Wonderfields" (also known as "Rest Calm") is probably the best tune in the entire soundtrack, because not only does its arrangement differ from its original version on Imaginaerum, it manages to surpass the original when you remove the droning power chords and labored drumming. Go figure, one of the weakest tracks on Imaginaerum turns out to be the best in the movie soundtrack. "Deeper Down" is essentially "The Crow, the Owl, and the Dove" with some intense orchestral flourish at the end. I enjoyed it. "From G to E Minor" is the 2nd rehashing of the original album's "Taikatalvi" (the first being the mediocre "Find Your Story"), but it ends up being the superior version if only because it was given special attention, what with being the finale and all. These three songs are the best this soundtrack has to offer, and with the exception of "Wonderfields," they're not quite as good as their original Imaginaerum counterparts.

Well then, you know what that means: the other 10 tracks are mediocre or worse. Mostly, these tracks are just lazy "ambient" orchestral rehashes of songs from Imaginaerum, and while I was probably aware the film's soundtrack would rely on the preceding album for a good chunk of its melodic themes, I wasn't expecting blatant copy-and-paste tracks like "A Crackling Sphere" (a.k.a. "Arabesque") and "Sundown" (a.k.a. "Turn Loose the Mermaids"), or miserably dull pseudo-ambient tracks like "Spying in the Doorway" and "Hey Buddy," both of which are the bare minimum of orchestral music--extremely quiet sustained notes, a melodic line here and there, and no distinguishing features whatsoever. "Dare to Enter" does the whole ambient thing much better overall, but it, too, is just dull and forgettable.

Really, there's not a whole lot left I can say about The Score. It dutifully parrots its namesake album while offering very little for the devoted fan, such as myself. It's absolutely miserable to sit through, but the orchestra itself isn't to blame here--they do their jobs admirably well, even spectacularly at times. Rather, I place the blame both on Tuomas and myself. Firstly, I blame Tuomas for thinking this was worthy for retail release at a $10 price tag; sure, it's cheaper than your usual album, but it's still unforgivable.

As for me, I blame myself for being dumb enough to actually expect anything truly worthwhile from The Score and shell out $10 to listen to this mess. I consider myself a die-hard Nightwish fan, but The Score did absolutely nothing for me except incite rage and frustration. Avoid it at all costs, people.