Once

Once is a work on which NIGHTWISH unified weighty guitar, a large-scale orchestra and operatic singing, building a cinematic scale. While the songs have large undulation, they do not lose melodic clarity, drawing grand scenes one after another. Pushing the band into worldwide popularity, it is a record that became the peak of the Tarja Turunen period. On “Nemo,” “Wish I Had an Angel” and “Ghost Love Score,” weight, pathos and fantasy bind at high density. In particular, “Ghost Love Score” became a grand epic representative of the band. Songs like “Dark Chest of Wonders” and “Planet Hell” breathe the band’s full playing too. A full-scale orchestral sound gives the work an overwhelming scale. It is a decisive record of symphonic metal that pushed NIGHTWISH’s worldview to a global scale.