Nightwish – Decades

Ahead of their world tour, Nightwish are releasing a compilation album, Decades.

Existing Nightwish fans are likely to have all their albums, which begs the question – who is going to buy this album? Existing fans who are completists and have to have everything the band has ever released will no doubt buy it, but other than that, there’s very little to make this worth buying as it’s basically just a compilation of remastered songs from the albums.

There’s only one song fans might be interested in and that strikes me as a cynical marketing exercise. Rather than use the version of “Nightwish” from the debut album, they’ve included the demo version, meaning the album includes a different version of a song. Does that make it worth buying? Probably not if I’m honest

Many fans had called for the songs to be re-recorded with Floor on vocals, but Tuomas decided to stick with the original versions which you can understand as this way the album is a true history of the band, but it does make the album less “something new” and more “just another compilation”

It’s an interesting approach – rather than starting at the beginning and working forward to present day, the album starts with the newest material and works backwards. It’s a bold move since it means the album starts with the 24 minute epic “The greatest show on earth” which while it’s an amazing song, isn’t an obvious choice to open the album – more to end it. The tracks included will no doubt be argued over by fans as everyone will have different views on what should or shouldn’t have been included – for example a slightly surprising omission is “Wishmaster”. Whatever your favourites, there should be plenty on the track listing to keep most people happy.

There really are a lot of amazingly good songs on this album, and if you don’t own any Nightwish albums then it’s a good introduction to the band, but there’s little to interest existing fans.  Most bands either include some demos, unreleased tracks or live tracks to make sure there’s enough new stuff to attract fans, but in this case they haven’t done that (other than the “Nightwish track”).

There’s even more reason not to buy it just yet. In North America, fans attending the Nightwish tour get a free copy of the album at the gig, and with a UK date likely to be announced after the band play Bloodstock then fans likely to attend any UK headline show would be wise to hold off buying this album in case the same offer applies in the UK.

“Decades” will be released on 9th March 2018

Track listing:

1. The greatest show on earth
2. Elan
3. My walden
4. Storytime
5. I want my tears back
6. Amaranth
7. The poet and the pendulum
8. Nemo
9. Wish I had an angel
10. Ghost love score
11. Slaying the dreamer
12. End of all hope
13. 10th man down
14. The Kingslayer
15. Dead boy’s poem
16. Gethsemane
17. Devil & the deep dark ocean
18. Sacrament of wilderness
19. Sleeping sun
20. Elvenpath
21. The carpenter
22. Nightwish (demo)