Reviews roundup – Tuomas Holopainen vs. Ramin Karimloo vs. Australian Pink Floyd

Reviews roundup – Tuomas Holopainen vs. Ramin Karimloo vs. Australian Pink Floyd

Yes, you read that right.  Because the brains behind Nighwish’s many moments of wonder has released a solo album.  Now, I’m not surprised to learn that it’s a concept album, and I wouldn’t have been taken aback had it turned out to be a treatise on the fallacy of existentialism.  But I wasn’t expecting a concept album about Scrooge McDuck.

That’s the maternal uncle of Donald Duck, and grand-uncle of Huey, Dewey and Louie.  You know, the miserly Scotch duck.  The one who is #1 on Forbes annual “Fictional 15” list of the richest fictional characters by net worth with $65.4 billion.  Anyway, this is actually a soundtrack to a Don Rosa’s comic book about Scrooge McDuck, called “The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck”, and even has cover artwork drawn by Don Rosa.

Anyway, madness aside, it turns out that Tuomas is a big fan, hence his latest epic.  And it’s really remarkably good.  No-one who heard “Imaginaerum” will be surprised by the symphonic, Celtic rock that’s on offer here, although the man himself is at pains to point out that Nightwish are still an ongoing concern.  As with that album, there is a lot of instrumental music to listen to, although there are some guest vocalists with former Battlefield Band man, Alan Reid, playing Scrooge.  So at least the Scotch accent is bang on.

Add in Nightwish regular Troy Donockley on Uilleann pipes, low whistles and bodhran, as well as some additionalbanjo and didgeridoo, and you’ve got an adventurous set of tunes, all topped off with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, arranged by Pip Williams.  Sometimes you do forget that it’s about Scrooge McDuck.  I know I was thinking about my Dads family who ended up thousands of miles from home in the Pennsylvania coal fields and the Queensland gold mines, as I listened to ‘Cold Heart of the Klondike’.

Fans of Nightwish will love this, and would urge you to get the limited edition version, which has some amazing artwork, and a second disc of instrumental versions.

And it must be mad day, because here comes West End star, Ramin Karimloo, with his new solo EP, and it kicks off with a bluegrass version of ‘Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’ from “Oklahoma”.  Oh, yes.

This EP is the first in a series of four, with North, South and West to follow.  The originals are cowritten with Hadley Fraser, another Les Mis veteran, so it’s no surprise to hear ‘Empty Chairs at Empty Tables’ here, albeit it in a countrified form.  It’s hard for the original material in such distinguished company, but ‘Losing’ and ‘Broken’ to their best, with the latter a song that will stand the test of time.  Mr Karimloo calls it “Broadgrass”.  I just call it splendid.

So this is as close as it gets to normal for the day.  A double DVD by the worlds leading Pink Floyd tribute band.

“Eclipsed By The Moon – Live In Germany” was filmed at Trier & Oberhausen Arenas in, um, Germany back in April 2013, and delivers 2 discs of live footage and extra features, with the “Dark Side Of The Moon” album performed in its entirety.

And they really are good at this.  As they should be.  But with Pink Floyd long gone, and a host of fans out there, combined with the anonymous nature of the original band, this will probably keep most Floyd fans very happy indeed.  I must admit, I wasn’t the biggest fan of “Dark Side…”, so it’s some of the other songs that got me going.  Ish.  So I really enjoyed the run through ‘Wish You Were Here’, ‘One Of These Days’ and ‘Comfortably Numb’ towards the end of the second disc.

Replete with a booklet of live photos, fans will definitely enjoy this, and you can get it directly from the band here – http://apf.tmstor.es/