Emotionless, unoriginal and vapid - A review of Tarja's "From Spirits and Ghosts (Score for a Dark Christmas)''

Every year again, citizens of the Western world get bombarded with Christmas music right after Halloween. We are exposed to it on the televison, on the radio and in shopping malls to just give a few examples. Instead of increasing the excitement for Christmas, it actually gets annoying really quickly. However, many artists and bands still think they have a brilliant idea when releasing revamped Christmas songs that have already been covered hundreds of times. Obviously, there is no artistic purpose behind it and only done for strictly commercial reasons. It's difficult to find Christmas records that are at least slightly interesting. The only albums I could at least recommend are the Roten Roses' Wir warten auf's Christkind which opts for a vivid punk rock approach and Twisted Sister's A Twisted Christmas which is at least partially entertaining. Tarja's boringly titled From Spirits and Ghosts (Score for a Dark Christmas) manages to stand out for all the wrong reasons. Even among the mass of unnecessary Christmas albums, that one here is particularly bad. Even Justin Bieber's Christmas record Under the Mistletoe was much better than Tarja's depressing lullabies.

Tarja Turunen hasn't made the mistake of covering religious songs for the first time. Only two years ago, she released a record with twelve different cover versions of the song Ave Maria. I would feel offended if more than five people actually bought that absolutely vapid release. Now, Tarja is back with twelve more cover songs performed with choir and orchestra and her usual classically trained vocals that might sound impressive at first contact but turn out sounding emotionless, invariable and predictable if you listen to more than two songs.

Christmas is a time of joy, love and togetherness. Tarja now tries to deliver a score for a dark Christmas which leads the idea of Christmas carols ad absurdum. It makes just as much sense as a Cantonese pop singer covering Norwegian black metal tracks. That would still be pardonable if the musicianship and the vocal performances were at least passionate. They don't sound like this at all. Choirs and orchestra deliver unimpressive routine jobs despite changing a few melodies here and there for the record. The repetitive vocals sound bland, cold and sterile. Tarja Turunen should play a cold-hearted witch in a fantasy movie as this would suit her talent better.

Tarja hasn't released one good record since My Winter Storm ten years ago and things are only getting worse. Those who are still supporting her are only doing it because of her career in Nightwish. I attended one of her performances during a festival and the crowd was only reacting to the Nightwish songs. I understand Tarja Turunen wants to move on and try out new things but her music is too uninspired to compete with classical music and too soft to be classified as symphonic metal or symphonic rock. This new record is a big mass of nothing at all. It hurts me to say such harsh things but this release doesn't have any redeemable quality whatsoever.

If you like to listen to bland symphonic music with an emotionless singer performing over it to make your children fall asleep or feel depressed for Christmas because you're a sadist, then go ahead and buy this joke of an album. If you have any common sense, avoid this release like the Black Death.

Final rating: 5%