Nightwish release 'Dark Passion Play', most expensive album in Finnish history

September 28, 2007

Symphonic power metal band Nightwish have released Dark Passion Play, the album with the highest production costs in the history of the band's native Finland. When drummer Jukka Nevalainen was asked the overall cost of the new album, he was quoted as saying “Roughly half a million... We don’t know the exact sum down to the euros and cents as yet.”

Half of this cost was incurred in London, United Kingdom, over an expensive eight days at the Abbey Road Studios, during which time the London Session Orchestra, the Metro Voices Choir, a gospel choir, and two Irish musicians recorded their parts at the studio. The rest was spent during the ten months between September 2006 and June this year, when the band were recording the rest of the album in Finland.

The album is the sixth full-length studio album by the band, and sports some impressive figures, boasting the contributions of almost 130 different musicians and requiring a total of almost 250 separate recording tracks. Nightwish is paying for the album via the company Scene Nation, who are entirely owned by Nightwish, and have sold the license for it to Nuclear Blast Records.

The album is the first to feature new vocalist Anette Olzon, who earlier this year replaced Tarja Turunen, the latter having departed the band in 2005.

The album went platinum (sold more than 30,000 copies) within hours of its Finnish release date of September 26, with 42,000 copies sold.

Nightwish are currently rehearsing for a world tour to promote the album.