Nightwish was formed two decades ago. This year they took a break from touring and releasing any new material, but decided to give attention to their old material and look back on their entire career by releasing a compilation album called “Decades.”
The songs on “Decades” are chronologically arranged, this is quite an interesting approach to a compilation album, because it literally takes you back to the past the deeper you go into the album, it goes from their most recent song “The Greatest Show On Earth” up until their first demo song “Nightwish.”
Curating a compilation doesn’t seem like the easiest job out there, especially if your work is very creative and many of your songs are quite masterful. The selection of songs is however great, but there seem to be missing some of the greatest hits like “Ever Dream,” “Wishmaster,” and then there are songs that I personally would have liked to see on there such as “Dark Chest of Wonders,” “Sahara,” or “Stargazers.” But not every song can make it to the cut.
The band has chosen not to touch the original versions, so that also means original singers are being respected and unfortunately we have yet to hear Floor Jansen singing some of those jewels live. The band did choose to remaster the tracks, so at least it’s somehow a new thing, as there is no unreleased tracks or anything new on there. All-in-all “Decades” does represent the band really well and it has a nice flow to it. I’d definitely recommend the album to other fans out there and those who have yet to discover Nightwish and their music, this is definitely the album you should get to get the big picture of what they have done so far.
Tracklist
Disk 1
1. The Greatest Show On Earth
2. Élan
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
Disk 2
1. Ghost Love Score
2. Slaying The Dreamer
3. End Of All Hope
4. 10th Man Down
5. The Kinslayer
6. Dead Boy’s Poem
7. Gethsemane
8. Devil & The Deep Dark Ocean
9. Sacrament Of Wilderness
10. Sleeping Sun
11. Elvenpath
12. The Carpenter
13. Nightwish (demo)
