{mosimage}The band is certainly not lacking of new material in the last years. Here comes a new CD/DVD recorded in Hong Kong (and other places) to check how the Finnish metal legends sound live!
It does not feel like it was so long time ago, but it has been already 3 years since Tarja Turunen left the band and the Swedish Anette Olzen came to cover her position. So after the turning point of Dark Passion Play, this does not seem like a bad moment to feed the fans with a new live album that explicit explains the continuation of the band after the End of an era, the last concert played by Tarja Turunen and the Finnish fellows in Helsinki.
But honestly, I have the impression that this release is not going to convince to most of the fans. Obviously the hardcore followers will be delighted with a new record, but the material seems maybe not too “fulfilling” to convince people about the purchase. All the live tracks are extracted from Dark Passion Play, 10 songs that sound great, well produced, with good quality and with a nice connection between Olzen and the fans worldwide (the tracks are cut not only in Hong Kong but in different parts of the world, as the co-title of the album explains). But the demo version of Cadence of her last breath feels a bit more like a filler than like a real present for fans, and the DVD does not provide with anything so special apart from the typical backstage scenes, etc in a documentary + 3 video clips that last less than an hour.
Nightwish could have offered more than this, and the question that immediately gets raises is why older songs from the band that are commonly played on live gigs like Nemo or Wish I had an Angel are out of this record. Trying to avoid comparisons between Turunen and Olzen? We cannot forget that the older material is also an important part of the history of Nightwish, but taking this decision of offering only tracks from the latest album just raises more questions and disappointment among the fans.
Made in Hong Kong (and in various other places) is undoubtedly a good live album, but a band with such an international top position as Nightwish has could and should have done much better than this. It seems that the shadow of Tarja Turunen keeps giving more than one headache to Mr. Marco Hietala.
Rating 3/5.
Related articles:
Review of Dark Passion Play: http://www.freemagazine.fi/content/view/409/118/
Interview with Tarja Turunen: http://www.freemagazine.fi/content/view/510/117/