A lot of people slagged Wishmaster off when it came out because it was too similar to Oceanborn. But so what? There's no point in changing a good formula. To be honest, this is not that similar to Oceanborn – the synths don't sound quite as silly, there are no attempts at extreme vocals and there is more variety in the songs [variety by Nightwish's standards].

This album has a brusque heaviness to it - a confident brashness that excels that of Oceanborn. From the very first beat of She Is My Sin your eardrums are assaulted with the pounding intensity of Nightwish at their best. It's great stuff, and it doesn't abate one bit for the entire album. The Kinslayer is a wonderful track [the intro always reminds me of My Girlfriend's Girlfriend by Type O Negative, which isn't a bad thing] as are Wanderlust [despite a silly intro riff vis-à-vis Edenbridge: The Palace], Come Cover Me and Fantasmic. The album's finest moment has to be Dead Boy's Poem, a lovely heavy and heartfelt number that I can't help feeling sums up Tuomas' attitude to music ["I have given this its strength and it has become my only strength"]. This song in particular shows that Nightwish are very good at doing one particular thing - writing songs in a certain way and including things that would be laughable and almost cause them to spin off into a new genre called 'camp metal' if anyone else were to attempt them, but they get away with it.

Wishmaster is a hard album to find problems with - there is one thing however: though the songs are varied, it can be quite easy to forget about some of them altogether [the middle of the album is a bit of a black spot for me] whereas every track on Oceanborn has a particular definition and an unforgettable allure. The only real problem is that there are times on Wishmaster when you can see them teetering on the edge of a cliff that leads off into the abyss of non-metal. Still, they haven't let themselves go quite yet and Wishmaster is another impressive offering as a result.