Song Review: "The Siren" by Nightwish

The Sea........can you hear the waves? But beware the song distant at first.....calling you down into the deep.....a song of such ecstasy that none can resist.

Forgive my vivid ramblings there but today's song combines two things of GREAT interest to me - the Sea and Greek mythology. The song "The Siren" by Nightwish is based on the incident in Homer's the Odyssey when Odysseus must pass the Sirens, demi-Goddesses of the deep whose song lures ships to their doom. This is without doubt one of my favourite songs by Nightwish. It is from their album "Once", when they were at their peak. The song contains not only the pseuod-operatic vocals of Tarja Turunen, but also the male vocals of bassist Marco Hietala (he of the Viking warrior appearance!) as the voice of Odysseus.

The song is underpinned by a decidedly Greek influence combined guitar and violin riff, over which are laid the aforementioned vocalisings. For me, however, the best part begins at approximately 01:55 into the song when the Eastern Mediteranean tinged violin solo commences leading into some ethereal, Siren-esque (unsurprisingly enough) choral-ising. If this doesn't fill your nostrils with the salty smell of the sea and make you wish you were at the wheel of an ancient trireme then you're a lily-livered land-lubber.

Here's a video I found on YouTube:

Until next time....you can take the wax bungs out of your ears now...and for the love of Poseidon will someone untie me from this damn wheel!!