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Dark Passion Play is the album that marks a huge turning point for these Finnish rockers, for this is the first album since the departure of Tarja Turunen, and arrival of vocalist Anette Olzon.

The album opens with a symbolic 14 minute, five part song, Poet And The Pendulum. The song, and albums opening line, “the end” represents the end of an era. This is then followed an epic song depicting the “death” and “resurrection” of songwriter Tuomas. This masterpiece was billed by Tuomas as his best piece. This is not true in my opinion, but that doesn’t mean that this is not an exceptional work of art. Bye Bye Beautiful follows. A song I interpret as a farewell to Tarja, with lines like “Did you ever hear what I told you”. This is more heavy, and has a strong powerful chorus. There are elements of synth amongst all the mighty guitars, which is a pleasant surprise.

The first full single release from this album, Amaranth is a catchy and less forceful tune, which would appeal to a wider audience. This is the first track we here which is sung entirely by Anette. At this point, I’m thinking that she is not as good as Tarja, and instead she makes the band sound like another Within Temptation, or Evanescence. However, Anette does have a pleasing vocal, and at least she can sing better than Amy Lee.

Master Passion Greed is an extremely heavy song, which I’m afraid I have to skip each listen. It spoils the flow of the album. Eva is an excellent rock ballad which showcases Anette’s vocals wonderfully. After this point, the album tends to lack likability. The songs fail to stand out as much. There are two exceptions though, which are the acoustic traditional ballad, The Islander and the Celtic meets metal instrumental track, Last Of The Winds.

Overall, this album is most probably the best symphonic metal album of the year, but it does fail to match the quality of the band’s last album, Once. Half of the tracks here are exceptional, while the others lack individuality and can be described as fillers, which is a little disappointing. It is however, a brilliant debut release for the new line up.

8/10 - Yes, there may be many fillers, but there are some epic tunes here.

Reviewed by Martin