The album has been described as following a natural development from
Dark Passion Play, inspired greatly by
film scores. Like
Dark Passion Play as well as
Once and
Century Child it features a live orchestra, again orchestrated by Pip Williams. The orchestrations have been described as "beautiful, twisted, tribal and cinematic", but will not be featured on every track as it was on
Dark Passion Play. Bassist Marko Hietala has emphasized that the album is heavier than the predecessor. Imaginaerum is the first Nightwish album since
their debut that features no music written by the guitarist Emppu Vuorinen. The reason for this, according to Vuorinen, is that after the long and exhausting touring for Dark Passion Play, he had no interest in touching his instrument for months. Holopainen has cited three major influences on the album — film director
Tim Burton, author
Neil Gaiman and painter
Salvador Dalí. Holopainen has called one song the "epic song of the album", "Song of Myself", which is almost as long as ''Dark Passion Play's'' "The Poet and the Pendulum" at 13 minutes. It is divided into four parts and especially influenced by poet
Walt Whitman.
Track by track "Taikatalvi" is Nightwish's first real intro song, and one of few Nightwish songs performed entirely in Finnish (alongside "
Kuolema Tekee Taiteilijan" from
Once, "
Erämaan viimeinen" from
Dark Passion Play and "Lappi (
Lapland)" from
Angels Fall First). The song also introduces the "
snow flake theme" of the album and movie, as the Finnish word "taikatalvi" means "magic winter". It is also the Finnish title of the book
Moominland Midwinter. He has also said that it greatly represents the band as a whole, with "punchy riffs and a melodic chorus" and an
orchestra heavy C-part. "Arabesque" is an instrumental, which was constructed especially for a scene needed in the movie. It is one of two instrumentals on the album, alongside the title track; thus
Imaginaerum contains the most instrumentals yet on a Nightwish album (counting the "Lappi" series on
Angels Fall First as a single song). "Turn Loose the Mermaids" is a "celtic ballad, sad, melancholic" song, and one of only two "real
ballads" on
Imaginaerum, and with a
Spaghetti Western inspired C-part. "Rest Calm" is one of the heavier songs on the album, inspired by
doom metal bands such as
Paradise Lost and
My Dying Bride, and is a mid-tempo and heavy but still melodic song that "gets totally out of hand in the end". "The Crow, the Owl and the Dove" is one of only two ballads in the album, co-written by Holopainen and bassist-vocalist Marko Hietala, who has written several songs for the band in the past. Holopainen has pointed out that it's "kind of funny that the most poppy ballad on the album is composed by the most
metalhead dude in the band". The song also contains some Troy Donockley's lead vocals before his tin whistle solo part. "Last Ride of the Day" is inspired by being on a
roller coaster. "Song of Myself" is inspired by Holopainen's favorite poet
Walt Whitman, and his famous
Song of Myself. It is "the epic one on the album", 13 minutes and 30 seconds in length and divided into four parts: • "From a Dusty Bookshelf" (0:00–0:23): The instrumental intro of the track. • "All That Great Heart Lying Still" (0:23–3:35): The first half of the actual song. • "Piano Black" (3:35–6:53): The second half of the actual song. • "Love" (6:53–13:30): The entire second half of the complete track, containing nothing but ambient symphonic metal music and spoken narrations. "Imaginaerum", the title track, is the
outro track of the album, conceived as what could run in the
credits of the movie. Holopainen came up with the idea of making a
medley of the album's main musical themes, and gave orchestral arranger Pip Williams free hands to make what he wanted of it, making it one of two songs of the album not composed entirely by Holopainen. ==Reception==