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Tarja Turunen, former singer with Nightwish, is the latest representative
Figures as diverse as Ann Wilson and Ann Boleyn have periodically filled the role, and escape is rare. It’s a small but potent ghetto, filled with adolescent hormones and unfulfilled longing, and everything about it is heightened – especially the drama. Thus Tarja’s excesses, which are many, can be judged kindly.
She spends much of Until My Last Breath sounding slightly unhinged, and her songs are a grab-bag of faux classical movements and portentous progressions. On the opener Ante Room Of Death, for example, Tarja lurches from ethereal bedroom whisperer to mad chick wailer without an ounce of warning.
Kate Bush comparisons are not invalid in stronger moments like Falling Awake and the lengthy Crimson Deep, but the constraints of genre interfere rather too often for Tarja to explore them fully.
