Thinking big has been such an intrinsic part of Nightwish’s DNA for so long that you do wonder if keyboard maestro and creative magician Tuomas Holopainen actually understands that it’s possible to make music without using The Lord Of The Rings soundtrack as some sort of benchmark. To wit, even elements that once seemed like giant steps for the Finnish symphonic metallers – like fulfilling his classical dreams by employing the services of The London Session Orchestra on 2005’s Once breakthrough – are now simply what this band do. And yet they still build, and on 2015’s superb Endless Forms Most Beautiful, the idea of the very nature of life was tackled to such a degree that they got Richard Dawkins to lend a few words. What’s surprising about Hvman:||:Natvre, then, isn’t that it’s a d...
