a metal band i learned about a long time ago is nightwish. until their recent lineup change, one of their characteristics was their singer tarja turunen, who contributed her opera voice to the symphonic power metal composed by tuomas holopainen. let me start with elvenpath, the powerful opener of their first album, angels fall first:

the next song i want to present is lappi, also from their first album. on the album, it is split up into four pieces, but this video contains all of them. lappi, naming the finnish part of lapland, is a beautiful, calm audio journey through the vast lapland. the lyrics can be read here.

the third song is from their second album oceanborn. it’s a fast, instrumental folk song, perfect for dancing to it. i really love it.

finally, the last piece is from their last album with tarja, once. its a nice mix of orchestra and symphonic power metal. it is, as the name indicates, a love song.

these songs are not exactly typical for nightwish, except the frist ones for their first two albums maybe. doesn’t mean the others are bad, but you can also listen to them on the radio, so i’d rather present some more (in my opinion) interesting pieces.