Nightwish - "Yesterwynde"

Looking to our past to find hope for our future

I cannot adequately express the emotion and excitement that swells in me as a Nightwish release draws closer. They are a monumental, foundational act for myself an many others. While they didn’t originate the Symphonic Metal genre (that credit goes to Therion), Nightwish defined the genre so explicitly that their name will eternally be used as a definitive descriptor of what Symphonic Metal is.

Yesterwynde is more than just their tenth studio album. It’s also the conclusion of a trilogy which started nine years ago, with 2015’s Endless Forms Most Beautiful; it’s the first album since 2000’s Wishmaster without Marko Hietala (bass, guitar, and backing vocals); it’s also potentially the beginning of the end for the band.

I still expect 2-3 more albums from Nightwish, don’t get me wrong. However, the band’s central member, keyboardist Tuomas Holopainen, turns 48 on Christmas Day this year; guitarist and bassist Emppu Vuorinen, the other surviving founding member, is 46 this year. The band is on a touring hiatus for the next few years, and has been on a 4-5 year album cycle for almost two decades now, so we’re not getting anything from them, realistically, until the 30th anniversary of their debut album in 2027, which might feature a re-recording.

We won’t get album #11 until ‘28 or ‘29.

So when we get a new Nightwish album, it’s something to be celebrated.

Even if it’s incredibly unlikely that they’ll ever top Dark Passion Play.

So what about this album, then — Yesterwynde? How does their tenth album stack up?

To begin, the ‘wynde’ portion of the album’s title is pronounced with a long ‘i’, like how you wind a clock. The concepts of time and generational progress are core thematic elements on Yesterwynde. But in order to explain why, I need to backtrack briefly for those unfamiliar with Nightwish, or specifically their last two albums. As I stated earlier, Yesterwynde concludes a trilogy, and we can’t properly analyze the finale without understanding what comes before.

This arc of Nightwish’s discography begins with 2015’s Endless Forms Most Beautiful, which was recklessly profound in its discussion of life on Earth and the potential cataclysm we’re facing (read: climate change). The “endless forms most beautiful”, of course, are the many, many different species who live (and have lived) on our amazing planet. This titular line exists within the album’s closing track, a sweeping 24-minute opus which is one of the best singular songs the band has ever produced; but the album has many great moments. Despite the consensus that Floor Jansen’s talents were underutilized on her debut with the band (and the fact that I was a huge fan of the two Anette Olzon albums which preceded it), it was a very promising start to her tenure.

Part two was 2020’s Human. :II: Nature. Note the structure of the title — it is reminiscent of how we write analogies as problems, also known as “word relationships” or “parallelisms”. This was highly intentional, as the album was structured in two very distinct halves: Human and Nature.

The Human side of the album was the only one with words. It carried forward motifs of life and evolution, of survival and cooperation. More than anything, this side of the album was about creation and human achievement.

The Nature side of the album (which has its own proper title: All the Works of Nature Which Adorn the World) is entirely orchestral, with a wild (pun intended) variety of instruments fleshing out its compositional ecosystem. It draws a stark contrast with the first half; they both have beauty and harshness and depth and darkness, but each of these elements presents differently.

Now, full disclosure, the longer I sat with the album, the less the first half impressed me — the songs here just didn’t click in the same way that a lot of Nightwish songs typically have. There are good moments and they leave an impression, but I’ve never been able to connect with any of those songs in the way that I expect to; the real landmark on Human. :II: Nature. is the concept, itself. And, taken as a whole, the album seems to underscore the conflicts between man and nature while also pointing out that it doesn’t have to be that way, given the strong emphasis on creativity and intellect in the first half of the album.

Overall, the first two albums in the trilogy paint the picture of a world teetering on the edge — the Earth and all of its living things are in immediate and existential peril. However, the biggest threat to everything is also capable of finding solutions and solving those problems.

Thus, we arrive back at Yesterwynde, which kicks off with words sung by The Timeless, a multiversal force introduced in the final song (of the Human side) of Human. :II: Nature., tying the albums together neatly. Both the intro track, “Yesterwynde”, and the song that follows, “An Ocean of Strange Islands”, lean into this connection. We don’t really get into the heart of the album until track three: “The Antikythera Mechanism”.

For those who aren’t familiar (I wasn’t), the Antikythera Mechanism is an analog computer dating back to the second century BC. It is Greek in origin, and was used to predict the movements of the solar system, including eclipses, for up to several decades ahead. It is a fascinating subject, and serves to illustrate the progress and knowledge which was lost in the Dark Ages. It serves, especially here, to illustrate mankind’s resiliency — our ability to bounce back and continue onward. The song includes the lines “From Lucy’s¹ prints/To those on the Moon”, and “In the end, to the stars”.

This is where the album really begins to define itself. In the wake of the trilogy’s first two chapters, Yesterwynde doubles down on the future by reminding us of our past. The album spends much of its time reminding us of the trials that we, as a species, have faced already, and even sarcastically downplays them (and our current crises) in “The Day Of…”, the album’s fourth track, which is about how there’s always some doomsday or another on the horizon.

While I don’t love the way that that particular song pretends to shrug off the climate crisis (the ironic tone falls a little flat, in my opinion), the overarching theme is one of hope, with the album at-large stating pretty blatantly that when push comes to shove, we pull together. It builds on the positive undertones of the first two albums and sets the fears to the side.

Part of this is through encouraging celebration of our world, as in “Sway”.

The last specific song I want to highlight is “The Children of ‘Ata”, which leans on the story of six shipwrecked Polynesian teens who survived, alone, on the island of Ata for fifteen months in 1965-66. It’s a specific story which highlights the album’s themes and plays well with the ‘island’ motif.

But it does make me wish that they had pulled out one or two more specific tales like that — especially when “Spider Silk” and “Hiraeth” don’t seem to fit the overarching theme. At the least, I haven’t been able to pinpoint how they contribute.

And I’ve been thinking a lot about this album while trying to find the time to write this review.

Musically, the album suffers from the same issue I had with Human. :II: Nature., but it doesn’t have the same level of mind-blowing concept or structure. Basically, if you’ve heard any of Nightwish’s material in the last fifteen years, there’s nothing on Yesterwynde that’s going to blow your mind. Again — it’s good, and it’s competent, and there are enjoyable moments and melodies, but my skull is disappointingly intact.

So, to be clear, part of my complaint here is that my bar for Nightwish is just incredibly high. I know what they’re capable of, and they’ve failed to surprise me or push anything further. It also feels like the album still fails to make use of Jansen’s stylistic range.

Lyrically, there are two or three songs which rely too heavily on lists. It’s something that I’ve seen in plenty of Nightwish songs before, but it’s a trick that shouldn’t be utilized on back-to-back songs, or even more than once per album. It begins to feel lazy.

So, ultimately, I’m a little disappointed in this Nightwish release. But I have to underscore that a ‘disappointing’ Nightwish album is still pretty fucking awesome.

Rating: Teal

1. Referencing the famous Australopithecene skeleton.