It's clear that this album has stirred up some emotions in people (especially Nightwish fans!), but to me this just makes the somewhat rarefied gothic/operatic/orchestral metal genre more interesting.

For myself, I am very impressed with this album. If Tarja's solo sound is somewhat different to that of her old band Nightwish, that's surely an intentional move, and certainly a positive one to my mind.

But anyway, on to the music. The album has a heavily classical/orchestral leaning, lending it an overall feeling of being lighter but deeper than a lot of its bedfellows. It's far more like classical with metal elements than the metal-with-classical of most similar bands and artists, and this gives it a distinctive, somewhat refined character. Tarja's voice is, as always, powerful and graceful, leading the melody through both thick and thin accompaniments. She also displays a remarkable range here, reaching for more lows and highs than I have heard from her before, and… more »

It's clear that this album has stirred up some emotions in people (especially Nightwish fans!), but to me this just makes the somewhat rarefied gothic/operatic/orchestral metal genre more interesting.

For myself, I am very impressed with this album. If Tarja's solo sound is somewhat different to that of her old band Nightwish, that's surely an intentional move, and certainly a positive one to my mind.

But anyway, on to the music. The album has a heavily classical/orchestral leaning, lending it an overall feeling of being lighter but deeper than a lot of its bedfellows. It's far more like classical with metal elements than the metal-with-classical of most similar bands and artists, and this gives it a distinctive, somewhat refined character. Tarja's voice is, as always, powerful and graceful, leading the melody through both thick and thin accompaniments. She also displays a remarkable range here, reaching for more lows and highs than I have heard from her before, and injecting songs with vocal performance where appropriate (in a way which reminded me, strangely, very much of Kate Bush!).

There's a decent mix of songs, from the instant-like opening pair to tracks which grow steadily on you (always the best!), and the quality is consistently high throughout.

Production is remarkably clean; there's a definite attempt to steer away from too much electronic trickery and let the sound speak for itself, which works when the material has the strength that most of this album holds. The one significant exception to this is the cover version of Alice Cooper's Poison, which is hugely over-produced. Presumably this was an attempt to inject the song with an extra energy and verve, and help make it different to the original, but it spoils what might have been a very interesting cover of a classic song, and for me this is the weakest point of the album.

Additionally, on a couple of tracks, the mixing is not perfect, with guitar riffs coming in a little too suddenly, making it obvious that they were recorded seperately. This is hardly unusual, indeed being pretty much the normal process in modern music production, but it would have been nice to have it disguised a little more!

There's one more thing that merits mention, and that's the thematic nature of this album. The beautifully produced inlay booklet says it all; different characters, behind and subjects of the songs, presented in all their contrasting glory. The songs make a good stab at following this through, with some wonderful use of sound and music to produce feelings of cold, excitement, threat, and wonder. If there's a new album coming, I hope this side of things is developed more, as it makes for a far more interesting listen, and a far more complete package, than a straight collection of songs.

So in conclusion, this is a very impressive project. Tarja has resoundingly answered the question of whether she can go it alone (and indeed Nightwish have equally impressively proven that they can go on without her), and she has managed to carve herself an interesting niche outside of anyone else's shadow. There's room for improvement, certainly, but this is nevertheless an excellent candidate for expanding the collection of anyone who's into this style of music.