NIGHTWISH Reveals Concept For Next Album

In the midst of recording a new album, Finnish/Swedish symphonic metallers NIGHTWISH have been preparing a movie.

"Imaginarium" is a music fantasy film based on the forthcoming NIGHTWISH album of the same title and its 13 songs.

The protagonist of the film is a songwriter with an otherworldly imagination. He is an old man who still thinks he's a young boy. While asleep, he travels into his distant past where his dreams of old come back to him mixed to the young boy's world of fantasy and music.

In his dreams the old man fights to find the memories most important to him.

This unprecedented project originated more than two years ago when NIGHTWISH keyboardist and main songwriter Tuomas Holopainen first introduced his ambitious idea of the "Imaginarium" concept to his bandmates and to Stobe Harju, the director of NIGHTWISH's "The Islander" music video. Harju will helm this full-length feature, which will be produced by Solar Films Inc. along with NIGHTWISH.

The "Imaginarium" filming will begin this spring and the movie will have its premiere in 2012.

NIGHTWISH will hold a press conference related to this project at the end of February.

Holopainen recently gave the German edition of Metal Hammer magazine a video tour of the facility where he worked on the material for the band's follow-up to 2007's "Dark Passion Play". You can now watch the footage in two parts by following these links:

* Part 1
* Part 2

NIGHTWISH entered the studio in October 2010 to begin recording its new CD for a late 2011 release.

Regarding the musical direction of the forthcoming album, NIGHTWISH singer Anette Olzon recently wrote on her official blog, "I think it's a great and varied CD. The feelings in it are great and there are a lot of elements in it, so I am sure it will have many different favorite songs for the listeners since the songs are so different in styles and sound. 'Dark Passion Play' is a great album and this one, too, so I don't know yet which one I like more, but, of course, for me personally, this one feels better to do since the songs are more adjusted to my voice and my style."

The pre-production sessions for the new NIGHTWISH CD took place in "the deepest countryside of Finland," where most of the band spent several weeks finalizing the song arrangements and recording their instrumental parts.

NIGHTWISH played a special homecoming show in September 2009 at the sold-out, 11,000-capacity Hartwall Arena in Helsinki to mark the end of the band's colossal "Dark Passion Play" two-year world tour.

NIGHTWISH is not expected to play any more concerts until the release of the band's next studio album.