Angels Fall First - Nightwish

...Finland, and formed in 1996, Angels Fall First was their first album.

Members:

Tarja Turunen - Vocals
Tuomas Holopainen - Keyboards
Jukka Nevaleinen - Drums
Emmpu Vuroinen - Guitar
Sami Vanska - Bass


1) Elvenpath

Elvenpath is an excelent opening song to the album, it starts of with a small spoken passage from Tarja, and then the songs gets heavy with Emmpu's ...
...ending.

5) Angels Fall First

Nightwish usually have a ballad on every album they have done, and this is no exception, and unlike other ballads by Nightwish, this is completely acoustic, which allows Tarja's great vocals be more recognised, her vocals are especially good in the chorus, the song fades out at the end with keyboards, the songs makes good use of flutes as well, and adds an extra atmoshphere to the song.
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Nightwish are from Finland, and formed in 1996, Angels Fall First was their first album.

Members:

Tarja Turunen - Vocals
Tuomas Holopainen - Keyboards
Jukka Nevaleinen - Drums
Emmpu Vuroinen - Guitar
Sami Vanska - Bass

1) Elvenpath

Elvenpath is an excelent opening song to the album, it starts of with a small spoken passage from Tarja, and then the songs gets heavy with Emmpu's riffs, its a very fast and energetic song, and sounds kind of power metally, the song ends with a nice solo by Emmpu.

2) Beauty and The Beast

In this song Tuomas decides to sing and the result is awful, i'm quite used to his vocals and don't mind them, but newcomers to the band will hate it along Tarja's skilled operatic vocals. Back to the beginning of the song, it starts out with keyboards and rhythem riffs, before opening into the verse where Tuomas and Tarja sings, Tarja sings the chorus on her own, after 2 choruses the song goes quiet, with just keyboards in the background, and Emmpuu performs a slow but beautiful solo, the tempo goes up near the end.

3) The Carpenter

This song has really grown on me, once again Tuomas sings, and this time its for most of the song, with Tarja singing along in the chorus, despite this it is'nt to bad, Tuomas sings very softly, accompanied by an acoustic guitar, before the chorus comes in, its a very sing-a-longy chorus. Towards the middle Tuomas does a fantastic keyboard solo, before heading back into the chorus.

4) Astral Romance

Tuomas sings again, but thankfully only for about 10 seconds, Tarja sings mostly on her own on this one, there is a part where the song goes quiet in the middle and Tarja just sings without any instruments in the background, the song then heads into a fantastic keyboard and guitar solo before ending.

5) Angels Fall First

Nightwish usually have a ballad on every album they have done, and this is no exception, and unlike other ballads by Nightwish, this is completely acoustic, which allows Tarja's great vocals be more recognised, her vocals are especially good in the chorus, the song fades out at the end with keyboards, the songs makes good use of flutes as well, and adds an extra atmoshphere to the song.

6) Tutankhamen

As the name suggests the song has a very egyptian sound, the guitar riffs are particularly excelent in this song, and gives the song its trademark egyptian sound.

7) Nymphomanic Fantasia

Tuomas Holopainen has admitted himself that the lyrics in this song are awful, despite this the song is arranged very well, the song starts of slow and quietly and builds up into keyboards and distortion, the chorus is brilliant and contains some of Tarja's best singing on the album, and the keyboards at the end of the song are just amazing.

8) Know Why The Nightingale Sings

This is the fastest and heaviest song on the album, and as with Elvenpath, is a power metal type song, with flourishes of guitar and keyboard riffs and solos, its one of the most technical songs on the album, and sounds great, its more of a showboating song in my opinion.

9) Lappi

This epic is split into four parts and runs for over eight minutes, it starts out with a nice acoustic riff, and after about 1 minute Tarja's vocals come in, the second part of the song is just drums and sounds very eerie, in the 3rd part Tarja sings again and some distortion enters the song again before becoming acoustic again.

To finalise, totally recommended album, this is a great debut and the members of Nightwish were only in their late teens when they released this debut, and show musicianship beyond their years. 

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