Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish dropped their new highly anticipated double-album, the punctuation-happy Human. :II: Nature., today (April 10th), and to celebrate its entrance into the world, they’ve rolled out not one, not two, but 10 lyric videos — one for every song on the record. The follow-up to 2015’s Endless Forms Most Beautiful — and the group’s second LP with singer Floor Jansen, who joined the band in 2012 — features nine tracks on its main disc and one long composition, divided into eight parts, on its second.
Among the 10 videos is the clip for disc two closer “Ad Astra,” which was originally released in March in conjunction with Nightwish’s partnership with the international conservation charity organization World Land Trust. The charity — whose patrons include Sir David Attenborough and Chris Packham — aims to protect the earth’s most biologically significant and threatened habitats, acre by acre.
According to Nightwish keyboardist and main songwriter Tuomas Holopainen, Human. :II: Nature. is not a concept record, but as he told Germany’s Rock Bottom, it is “a thematic album.” “At some point through the songwriting process, I realized that the word ‘human’ appears in all the songs, and these are all somehow connected,” he explained. “Then I kind of realized that, ‘OK, this song is about the power of human imagination,’ ‘This song is about the power of human empathy,’ ‘This song is all about music descending on mankind,’ ‘This song is about human versus technology.’ So, ‘OK, let’s call this album Human.’ But that doesn’t sound quite right, so the last song, it’s all about the beauty of planet Earth. The last song is kind of like Nightwish’s love letter to planet Earth. So that’s nature — human nature. That’s how we came up with the title of the album.”
Human. :II: Nature. track listing:
Disc 1:
01. Music
02. Noise
03. Shoemaker
04. Harvest
05. Pan
06. How’s The Heart?
07. Procession
08. Tribal
09. Endlessness
Disc 2:
01. All The Works Of Nature Which Adorn The World – Vista
02. All The Works Of Nature Which Adorn The World – The Blue
03. All The Works Of Nature Which Adorn The World – The Green
04. All The Works Of Nature Which Adorn The World – Moors
05. All The Works Of Nature Which Adorn The World – Aurorae
06. All The Works Of Nature Which Adorn The World – Quiet As The Snow
07. All The Works Of Nature Which Adorn The World – Anthropocene (incl. “Hurrian Hymn To Nikkal”)
08. All The Works Of Nature Which Adorn The World – Ad Astra
