"Dark Passion Play" history :
It may be the first time that an album from Nightwish is so heavily expected. Until ONCE, the releases of the albums were released every two years without surprise. “Dark Passion Play” is the first one to break that rule for reasons that we all know about: Tarja’s dismissal and the search for her substitute. This context is difficult for Nightwish, the most difficult in its career because fans did not wait to part into two separate clans: pro-Nightwish who remained faithful to Tuomas and understood his point of view, versus pro-Tarja whose passion for the band was only based on the Finnish Beauty’s voice. This was a big issue then, but the band’s credibility was also at sake and they could not offer an album that was not as good as “Once”. Indeed, this album that was released in 2004 was censed by the media and it is the band’s biggest success by far (the massive production by Nuclear Blast, their record company since “Once”, is obviously part of it). How could they release a better album than “Once” without being a copy from it, and also having a new singer with no lyrical voice (even if Tarja had given up this genre herself since “Once”)? This was a big challenge for the band! However, Tuomas did not worry. He said that he was not looking for wealth or success or a million copies sold ; and that it would not be a problem for him if the next album did not make as good as the previous one as long as he had the possibility to keep on making albums and playing shows. A very “Nightwish” philosophy which is one reason for the split in 2005. His ultimate goal is to make music.

The album's making of :
Because of the circumstances, the making of this album was quite special. First, in summer 2006, the band met with some friends in a cottage in Finland to rehearse the future songs for the first time. Since the band did not already have a new singer, Marco sang on the demo version of the album. At the same time, the band listened carefully to the demos that were sent by potential new singers, eventually choosing a handful of them. The band met these lucky ones and tested them by giving them an instrumental version of “Once” and asking them to sing a few extracts from the next album. Among them, Anette, the one who would officially become Nightwish’s new singer in May 2007. For this album, Tuomas chose Pip Williams again as well as the London philharmonic orchestra and also afford to record the album in the famous Abbey Road studios. Lastly, while the band remained silent about their new singer until the end, they wrote a lot of reports on the recordings of the album and made videos on their video blog.

New album, new tour :
Tarja’s departure led the band to make the biggest tour they have ever made in their career: as a matter of fact, the tour was planned to last for two years and a half. As Ewo (the band’s manager) told us on the 8th issue of our Fan Club fanzine, the band wishes to do more shows everywhere (in France also, where 3 or 4 shows are planned for the beginning of 2008) in order, of course, to present the new songs, but also and most of all to present Anette, the new singer. Nightwish chose to start their tour in the USA (apart from a “training” show in Tel Aviv just before) for two main reasons: make up for the cancellation of the last tour in North America, and allow Anette to get used to the stage and feel good there in smaller venues than arenas and big European venues. This is also the reason why the band decided to release “Dark Passion Play” in September only: in order to get ready and not to start their tour with Festival in summer 2007.