NIGHTWISH: How 'Dark Passion Play' Became Finland's Most Expensive Album Of All Time

NIGHTWISH drummer Jukka Nevalainen has told the Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat that the band's new album, "Dark Passion Play", which will be released in stores — at least in Finland — on September 26 (October 2 in North America) cost "roughly half a million europs to record. "We don't know the exact sum down to the euros and cents as yet," he said.

Half of the cost of the CD was racked up in London, at the legendary Abbey Road Studios in St. John's Wood. Over the space of eight days, the London Session Orchestra, the Metro Voices Choir, a gospel choir, and a couple of Irish musicians were recorded in the studio.

The other half of the costs were taken up in Finland, and were spent over a considerably longer space of time.

"We were in the studio from September [2006] to June," says Tuomas Holopainen, NIGHTWISH's leader, songwriter, and keyboard player.

Holopainen is sitting on a sofa in Akun Tehdas (Aku's Factory),a studio and general audio-visual-cluster complex in Tampere, where NIGHTWISH have been rehearsing in advance of their upcoming world tour.

Ten whole months in the studio! But then again, practically all the numbers associated with this sixth full-length studio album are huge. Nearly 130 musicians all told. As many as 250 separate recording tracks...

NIGHTWISH is paying the bills for the recording work through its own company Scene Nation (set up in 2003) and has sold the licence on to the U.S./German label Nuclear Blast. The same arrangements were used on the previous album "Once" (2004),which reportedly cost around 240,000 euros to make.

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