No one could accuse of Nightwish of lacking ambition. As if the extraordinary opulence, intricacy and grandiloquent melodrama of last year’s grand conceptual piece, , were not sufficiently bold and dazzling, the globe-conquering Finnish crew are about to once again prove that old adage that if something is worth doing, it’s worth overdoing. November sees the release of their first full-length feature film, also entitled .
It’s a fairly logical step for a group of musicians who’ve always revelled in the limitless potential of art based on fantasy while exhibiting genuine passion for infusing their own distinctive acts of metallic bombast with the evocative power of the best movie soundtracks. Nonetheless, despite the fact that the idea of Nightwish making a film is far from surprising, there is something particularly invigorating about the levels of self-belief required to pull off such a brazen feat of artistic derring-do. “I remember it vividly when the idea came to me,” keyboard maestro and chief composer Tuomas Holopainen tells .
“We had just finished mastering the album in 2007 and I was listening to it, feeling really happy with it. I was starting to think about what the hell we could do next, because we always want to challenge ourselves and the fans, and do something different and innovative. It just occurred to me that I’ve always loved film music and it’s a big inspiration for the band, so why not try to make our own movie, to go along with the next.
