Review Summary: The Dark Times of Gothic/Symphonic Metal, Part 9
I never had much hope for Tara Turunen's solo career. I thought since Nightwish without her wasn't that good, then she probably wouldn't be very good without Nightwish either. I had heard the two singles from her 2007 album "My Winter Storm", and I wasn't impressed. Having heard the whole album now, I'd say your first impression is often the right one.
The first thing I must mention is that this album doesn't have a lot in common with Nightwish's epic and ambitious symphonic metal. Aside from one guitar-based song, it's more like symphonic/neoclassical music with a faint electric guitar background, or ballads where guitars occasionally appear. It could be more accurately described as symphonic rock or even symphonic pop. Is is at least good symphonic pop/rock? Well, not really, aside from a few good ideas here and there.
For example, "Lost Northern Star" begins somewhat mysteriously, with the opening line "I'm the one who leaves shadows in your room at night". The chorus with Tarja's powerful opera vocals also has some intensity, but the song doesn't do anything very interesting musically, mostly repeating the same riff and violin part. As for the two singles, "I Walk Alone" and "Die Alive", they're both incredibly dull. It's crazy how uninteresting "Die Alive" can be even after many listens. "I Walk Alone" has an interesting topic, about how Tarja is still carving her own path, on her own, after Nightwish, but it's more subtext than anything else, and other than that, the song never really picks up any intensity.
The lack of intensity is a problem on most of the album. "The Reign" is a ballad that shows off Tarja's voice, but other than that, doesn't have anything really remarkable. Tarja has a one of a kind voice, with lots of expressivity and power, both with her operatic singing and her regular singing. She carried Nightwish's songs so well that for a while, Nightwish just wasn't the same without her, and she tends to make everything she sings immediately better. But even she has limits because while most songs on this album are very pretty, they're not very interesting. Most songs that aren't soft ballads follow the "Star" model, where they are mostly ballads where the guitars occasionally come in but don't have anything very interesting to do so you wonder why they even bother. "My Little Phoenix" is an example of that, not to mention that Tarja doesn't sound that good on it, with that weird, girlish voice she uses on the verses. The only interesting thing about that is that, obviously, Tarja is the phoenix rising from the ashes, since she can't go two songs without mentioning that she has completely moved on from Nightwish.
As for more ballads: "Boy and the Ghost" is kind of nice, but mostly because of the chorus, and its title that sounds like a crash between Nightwish's "Dead Boy's Poem" and "Ghost Love Score". And it kind of feels like a Nightwish ballad in general. "Oasis" is mostly instrumental, but is at least not too repetitive, with every instrument having a chance to shine, and a few lyrics in Finnish. However, "Sing For Me" is, again, nice but not particularly memorable. Same with others like "Calling Grace" or "Damned and Divine". I don't mind albums that are mostly ballads or compilations of ballads on principle, but I can't listen to that for too long, because I always end up bored, and this is no exception.
So let's mention the songs that stand out. Somewhere in the middle, probably to bring some variety to the album, there is a cover of Alice Cooper's "Poison". I'm not sure if I find it fun or completely out of place. At least, it will make you appreciate the original even more. "Our Great Divide" could be another bland ballad, but something about its sadness and melancholy feels genuine, especially if you read it as being inspired by Tarja's dismissal from Nightwish."Ciaran's Well" is the only guitar-driven song, bringing much needed energy and edge to this album. It's kind of like an old Nightwish song, but it also feels somewhat different. "Minor Heaven" also feels different, with a melancholic and desperate "Let me go, minor heaven" chorus. It really makes you wish every song was like "Ciaran's Well" or "Minor Heaven", but unfortunately, that's not the album we got.
Yes, now I feel strong enough to review another album I didn't really like. This one introduces one more flavor of bad to the already varied bad tastes left by other "dark times of gothic/symphonic metal" entries: boring. That album was long and slow to get through. If Tarja wanted to be taken seriously as a solo artist, bland songs with none of Nightwish's ambition, no hooks and no real intensity aren't the way to go. It's all the proof you need that she's a singer, not a songwriter. I don't know if her other solo albums are better or worse than this one, but I can't say I'm particularly curious about them, and I can't really recommend anything from "My Winter Storm" except "Minor Heaven", "Ciaran's Well", "Oasis" and "Lost Northern Star". You'll be awfully disappointed if you expect something like Nightwish's good old days, and even if you want some poppier symphonic rock/metal, you could do a lot better, like Evanescence, or Xandria or Within Temptation, who might also appear in this series some day.
