Christmas albums (or even songs) from rock or metal acts are generally pretty awful with just a few songs becoming much loved classics. Tarja Turunen though is both a rock artist and a classical artist, so her Christmas album has the potential to be a success, especially as classical Christmas songs seem far more popular.
Tarja has an incredible voice which first came to wide-scale attention during her time with Nightwish where her beautiful vocals combined with amazing music to dominate the symphonic metal genre. With this album though she’s showing more of her classical side.
Tarja had this to say about the album… “Producing a dark Christmas album in the middle of the summer is a very interesting process, especially if you are doing it by the turquoise Caribbean Sea. Significantly different from the snowy Christmas that I am used to in my home country Finland. Another proof that the darkness comes from deep within. On this album, I explored the other side of Christmas. The Christmas of the lonely people and the missing ones. The Christmas for those that do not find joy in the blinking lights and the jingle bells. ”
The album is mainly Christmas classic songs such as “We three kings”, “Deck the halls” and “O Tannenbaum”, but there is one new song here, “Together”.
The album has been recorded with an orchestra which gives a lovely rich sound which goes so well with Tarja’s pure and powerful vocals. There is certainly a darker feel to the songs than the traditional versions but it’s not oppressively dark.
It’s a fantastic album. It’s not rock or metal, but I suspect that a lot of the fans of that side of her work will check this release out and many of them will enjoy it.
From spirits and ghosts (Score for a dark Christmas) will be released on 17th November 2017
Track listing:
1. O come O come Emmanuel
2. Together
3. We three kings
4. Deck the halls
5. Pie Jesu
6. Amazing Grace
7. O Tannenbaum
8. Have yourself a merry little Christmas
9. God rest ye merry gentlemen
10. Feliz Natividad
11. What child is this
12. We wish you a merry Christmas
- 11.73