Review of Nightwish - Highest Hopes - The Best of Nightwish

In light of Tarja’s departure from the group, it is a fitting time for Nightwish to release a Best-Of album to close the door on that lengthy chapter of their discography. Career-spanning retrospectives are always tricky to review because the band’s fans will usually have many of the featured songs on their original releases, and usually bands get better with time, so newcomers will end up skipping over many of the earlier tunes. Nightwish is different in that respect – their older material is as listenable as their recent works, with production that doesn’t miss a beat. In fact, I prefer their first few albums when they seemed to be playing with more vigor, putting out harder and faster power metal.

Now for those that have never heard of this accomplished act, I am getting ahead of myself. Nightwish play bombastic, symphonic power metal that is distinguished by Tarja’s operatic voice and a heavy reliance on keyboards. They are at their best when playing faster, powerful songs, although they have a tendency to slow things down to ballad-speed. Emppu’s guitaring is adept and up to the exacting standards of the power metal genre.

If you’ve heard Nightwish in passing and liked what you heard, then I would absolutely recommend picking up this Best-Of for a thorough introduction to the band. The song selection is a balanced mix of their whole catalog.

Here’s the setlist in album order:

Angels Fall First
"Elvenpath"

Oceanborn
"Stargazers"
"Sleeping Sun"
"Sacrament of Wilderness"
"Walking in the Air"

Wishmaster
"The Kinslayer"
"Dead Boy’s Poem"
"Wishmaster"
"Deep Silent Complete"

Century Child
"Bless the Child"
"Dead to the World"
"Ever Dream"

Once
"Nemo"
"Wish I Had an Angel"

Miscellaneous
"Over the Hills and Far Away (Gary Moore cover)"
"High Hopes (Pink Floyd cover)"

Release Details

Nightwish

Highest Hopes - The Best of Nightwish

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