“Nightwish” is undoubtedly one of my favourite metal bands and, you may agree or not, but I think it’s also one of the best of its kind ! They were one of the first bands I knew when I started to listen to metal music and I’m sure their work contributed directly in making my love for metal greater ! So far, “Nightwish” has never disappointed me. They do GREAT stuff, they always did, and I’m totally confident that they will keep on this way !!!
If you like symphonic metal, you NEED all their CDs in your collection. For what concerns “Highest Hopes: The Best of Nightwish”, it’s also a good album but honestly, since the band has a BUNCH of awesome tracks, it would probably have been easier (or better ?) to do a double compilation ! 16 tracks is quite good of course, but oh, what a difficult choice to make, then ! It’s unavoidable: some important songs are missing.
All in all, I’m glad with the track selection and I agree with MOST of it. They picked some of the best elements of every album and thus could balance everything well.
BUT if I would have chosen the selection myself and for my own use, maybe I would have replaced some tracks by some others. For example: “Wish I Had An Angel”, “Elvenpath”, “Dead To The World” and “High Hopes” (don’t like that version much). Not that I don’t like these songs, they are good, but…in my opinion, some others are much better. They have too many good ones and it’s weird to say but in this case, that’s the main problem. About “Sleeping Sun”, I’d say it’s my favourite Nightwish’s track ever but I really prefer the original version and don’t know why they decided to include that of 2005, which is far from being as good in my opinion (too slow)...The song definitely deserves its place here but I would have chosen the original version instead as everyone is familiar with it.
So, if I had to do my own compilation: OR I would have replaced some songs by some others (in the case I couldn’t exceed 16 ones), OR I would have kept this track list exactly the way it is now AND would simply have ADDED some more till I consider all the best ones are there (even if it could mean two CDs) ! Like “Gethsemane”, “Swanheart”, “Forever Yours”, “Ocean Soul”, “Wanderlust”, “Bare Grace Misery”, “Beauty Of The Beast”, “Creek Mary’s Blood”, “End Of All Hope”, “Two For Tragedy”, “Angels Fall First”, “Tutankhamen”, “Dark Chest Of Wonders” and “Passion And The Opera”.
With all this, they could easily have done a more complete “Greatest Hits”.
Don’t you agree ?
For those who like “Nightwish” but don’t have many of their albums, I still would recommend to get each album individually as they have so many good songs and this compilation can’t really offer you ALL their best.
Reviewed by Vikie Martel on April 8th, 2007
