1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

Submitted by Myrkrid on 5/10/2003

Yeah! I really like this band. One of the best bands faring from Finland. My opinion is that their third studio album Wishmaster is their best. I think it is even better than their latest album "Century Child".

I bought this album from a duty-free shop at airport in Helsinki, when I was going to Prague. There I listened this with my cd-player all the time. It just hit me. Especially the song "The Kinslayer" made me shake my head.

Sounds are good, musicianship is good, especially I like Tarja's singing. Nightwish shows that an operasinger fits also in metal. And how damn well! The booklet is beautiful, damn I just can't find anything negative on this album. Lyrics are good. To the song "Wishmaster" the band has borrowed some names from fantasy-books "The Lord of the Rings" (I read from the homepage, that it's their favorite book...) and the Dragonlance -saga. Words like "Elbereth" and "Lorien" from LOTR, "Shalafi", "Silvara" and "The Inn of Last Home" from Dragonlances. Wishmaster is one of the best songs on the album. Other excellent songs are "She is My Sin", "The Kinslayer" and "Wanderlust". All songs are good, but these are my favorites.

Wishmaster is the last full-lenght studio-album of the "old" Nightwish. Their latest album presents a new style. Some like it, the rest like it also, but not as much as the older albums. I think that on the older albums Nightwish had their own sound and atmosphere that can't be heard on the latest production.

Wishmaster can be recommended to the friends of melodic metal, and why not for others also? I myself am a friend of black metal, and still I really like the music of Nighwish. If you haven't heard Nightwish before, albums "Wishmaster" and "Oceanborn" are the best albums to start.

9/10

Submitted by kylereece on 1/14/2008

Man, thank God for file sharing! For if it wasnt for that I would not have come across one glorious track that exposed me to this beautiful brand of European metal. Nightwish's Wishmaster is a perfect amalgamation of symphonic/gothic metal.

The production is outstanding, the songwriting, fantasic, the musicianship, superb and the vocals, well the vocals are in a word, PHENOMONAL. Lead singer Tarja Turunen (miss her already) is an operatic wonder. She is a true master of her instrument, combining technicality, versatility, histrionics and emotion into each and every wonderful vocal performance. She is aso the perfect centerpiece for the exquisite metal opera that surrounds her throughout this album.

Standout tracks? Difficult to say when there really arent any weak or filler type songs on the entire album. Some of the most noteworthy would start with the solemn hard rocker Deep Silent Complete, the heavier gloom ride of Wanderlust (excellent synth at the end) and the dark yet welcoming power chord fueled Come Cover Me. 8 minute album closer Fantasmic usually gets credit for its 'epic' feel but in my opinion the album's true monolith is the excellent funeral dirge Dead Boy's Poem, a song that can brings one to reflective tranquility due to its sheer emotive output.

And that aforementioned glorious track? That would be what in my opinion is the crown jewel of the entire magnificent Nightwish catalogue, namely, Wishmaster. This ambitious title track combines all the best elements of symphonic metal . Operatic chanting, Seering synths. great power metal riffs, headbanging speed and THAT VOICE, combine into four and a half minutes of perfection. Its a track you will not soon forget. Anyway, enough praise on my part, needless to say, I highly recommend this album not just for symphonic or gothic metal fans but for anyone with open ears towards fresh, innovative, spellbinding music.