Nightwish - Imaginaerum (The Score)

Nightwish

Imaginaerum (The Score)

by Daniel Silva at 01 November 2012, 6:03 PM

Almost a year later NIGHTWISH releases the official soundtrack for their most ambitious project yet, not only for them as a band but to the Metal community as a whole; “Imaginaerum” promises to be a journey deep inside the mind of an aged songwriter, Tom, as he faces the Death of his once sharp and vivid mind to the eroding hands of time. As he drifts away into a coma, Tom, armed with the imagination of a ten-year-old, must travel through his imaginary world seeking answers and memories that are most important to him. The soundtrack, composed of reinterpretations of the songs previously released on the IMAGINAERUM album, reflects this introspective feel of the movie.

It was kind of strange reviewing a soundtrack album since it is not the same as reviewing a standard Metal or Hard Rock release. The way I see it, the soundtrack serves more as a background for the movie helping setting the tone of which scene, so to review it without the context of the movie, felt kind of weird for me at first, but then the more I thought about it the more I realized the same could apply to what I called the standard Metal album. In a Metal album each song could be seen as a small movie, a short film if you will, so the more I listened to “Imaginaerum (The Score)” the more I could visualize where they are going for the movie, and from what I could see in my mind’s eye I really loved it as I could see the journey the protagonist must go through to re-experience life.

Ever since the announcement of this project I was really excited about it and when they released the “Imaginaerum” album, it became one of my favorite albums of that year. And now with the release of “Imaginaerum (The Score)” I see this movie has a great chance of becoming a great work of the seventh art.