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	Century Child Nightwish Century Media, 2003 average customer review:based on 87 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

-1st new album in over two years! Massive anticipation! -Fourth full-length from one of gothic metal?s leading acts. -NIGHTWISH have already received double platinum and gold album awards in their native Finland, as well as winning two Emma Awards (the Finnish equivalent of a Grammy) and scoring four Top 10 hits at radio. -Produced by Tero Kinnunen (Nightwish) and Mikko Karmila (Amorphis, Stratovarius, Avantasia) at Caverock and Finnvox Studios in Finland.

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Dark yet fantastic!

Oceanborn and Century Child has got to be Nightwish's darkest albums, but Century Child is definitely a more haunting album and a bit dark in fantasy and aura. The album's music is more spiritual sounding compared to any other of their releases as well. This CD marks a change in Nightwish's sound - Tarja doing less opera vocals and in a more steamlined kind of vocal, but regardless of her technique, she is one of the most brilliant singers out there. I think that Nightwish fans overlook this CD for its different sound that the fans may not be all that used to, but it still sounds like Nightwish. The addition of Marco is also a factor in creating a darker sound for Nightwish with his rough and haunting vocals to compliment Tarja's spiritual sound in her vocals. I'd still say this is a great Nightwish album and fans must hear this as they need to hear all their other stuff.

My personal favorite off this CD is "Ever Dream" - it's probably the most passionate uplifting spirit song on this CD, as well as the first single I think. But every song on this CD blends in together to form some sort of a concept, but every song can stand out on its own as well.

This CD is just plain beautiful - get it!

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Another Great CD by Nightwish

Century Child marks the beginning of a change of sound for Nightwish. After (and in) this album, they start to focus more on the symphonic sounds, rather than the power-metal qualities their prievious albums had.

Of course, for people like me, this is a great change. While Nightwish were great with power metal, they are epic with their symphonic metal qualities.

The first four songs still retain some of the power metal sounds, but they do show the transition between the two styles.

Then the fifth song, "Slaying the Dreamer" is a really fast paced, angry sounding song, especially in the latter half, but it still sounds great, and is one of my favourite songs on the album.

"Forever Yours" is the only song on the album that is slow all the way through, but it sounds really beautiful, as all of Nightwish's slow songs tend to do.

"Ocean Soul" and "Feel For You" are two good songs, but I think almost all the other songs overshadow them.

Then Nightwish does a cover of "Phantom of the Opera" by Andrew Lloyd Webber. This is my favourite song on the album, and it really is great. People who are used to hearing the original version of this song may be thrown off by Marco's gravelly version of the Phantom, but you should be able to get over it rather quickly.

Finally, the most epic song on Century Child, "Beauty of the Beast." It really is a masterpiece in pretty much any way one looks at it. It's also a great way to end the album, with a ten-and-a-half-minute-long epic.


Overall, this is a great album, although I personally like their next album, Once, a lot more. If you like Once or Dark Passion Play, you'll most likely like this album too. The reverse is true too, if you like this, then you'll probably like Once and Dark Passion Play.

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Nightwish never fails!

This was the second album I bought of Nightwish (the first was "Once...), and again, Nightwish never fails to release such an entrancing album. The lyrics are step up, Marco comes along (yeah!) and Tarja's voice soars higher than before. Some tracks on the album will always be immortal:

Bless the Child
Slaying the Dreamer
Ever Dream
Ocean Soul
Phantom of the Opera (stunning version)

This is a slight step down from Wishmaster, but still, if you really pay attention to the heart of the lyrics, every song is beautiful and stands strong on its own. This must in your library if you love metal! NW forever!

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Greatest There Is

To be honest, I've actually read a lot of average reviews for this album and I can't help but thinking why..
First of all, I am a massiv efan of Nightiwsh and love everything they've ever done (except maybe Angels Fall First :p) but this album stands by far above the rest.
Every song on this album is perfectly written and crafted and grabs your emotions like no other album can.
Most metal bands are not known for great lyrics or for creating albums full of emotion, but this one is.

Track 4, EVER DREAM, is possibly one of the most amazing songs ever created, filled with such sorrow and beauty at the same time.. While slying the dreamer filled with such rage yet frailty.

By far, the greatest track on this album is the epic finale, Beauty Of The Beast. This is a true masterpiece that I can listen to for hours.

In my opinion, this is the greatest album ever written and recorded and gets 100/5 stars

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A lot of great stuff, but a hard album to love

Evolutionary principle pretty much presupposes that each stage in development will link up to the next and so on and so forth until development takes place. Hence the concept of missing links. And here is the Nightwish not so missing link. The album that seemed to promise more than the previous couple of studio efforts yet seemed to have dreams larger than those it could fulfill. There is no doubt that there is talent all over the place here. The title track and Beauty and the Beast are two good example of this ability to pen good music. The tune Feel For You (which the band never rated as one of the best on the album strangely) shows the group continuing to throw in a few numbers with male counterpoint vocals - this time courtesy of new guy Mr Hietala.

The 100% appropriate cover of The Phantom of the Opera is pretty awesome though once I saw/heard it I always go back to the End of an Era live version and the band sally forth with more obtuse yet hard edged lyrics combined with powerful music on Slaying the Dreamer, one of those tunes you just know Tuomas wrote to exercise the inner demons he has admitted he finds so hard to get out of his system in his personal life (see Bye Bye Beautiful from Dark Passion Play for another example of this).

An album that on first spin left me a little cold and disappointed but which after time grew on me and I can appreciate the bands direction so much more in hindsight after hearing Once. And we again get colourful and pleasant cover art, quality booklet and complete lyrics and it's this attention to detail that permeates all Nightwish product and gives even their lesser, earlier albums an aura of quality. Note that in some releases a second disc was included that had the video clip for Over the Hills and Far Away which is a somewhat weird affair, but once again we come back to that aspect of focus and quality I was just talking about.

Grab it cheap to get a snapshot of a band that was refusing to stand still and just make Wishmaster Mk II.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10



Tracks
Bless The Child | End Of All Hope | Dead To The World | Ever Dream | Slaying The Dreamer | Forever Yours | Ocean Soul | Feel For You | The Phantom Of The Opera | Beauty Of The Beast

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