As lead singer with Nightwish, Tarja Turunen helped popularise the whole symphonic metal genre and brought it to a global audience. There is always a danger when an artist is closely aligned with a scene; stereotyping can paint them into a corner from which it is hard to escape. Not so for Finnish singer Tarja, an operatic vocalist who has gone from strength to strength by finding new ways to express herself without pulling up her musical roots. Case in point being new studio album (her tenth solo effort), Frisson Noir, that’s at once fresh and familiar and finds Tarja rediscovering her love of music (and with a little help from her friends).
Schooled in music (Tarja made her first performance at age three), if there’s one thing she has learned over the years, then it is how to make an entrance. With piano notes falling like snowflakes from a crystalline sky, the intro to opening (and title) track ‘Frisson Noir’ is ethereal and otherworldly, and is akin to stepping through a magical door. It gradually weaves a spell around the listener, taking shape almost imperceptibly before we are rudely awaken from our reverie at the 75-second mark. The sonic shift is quite startling and from here we are totally immersed in Tarja’s world as she toys with us like a cat with a mouse, constantly repositioning the listener through changes in timber and tone, contrasting the loud with the quiet, and the heavy with the lithe. The result is an album that’s in constant motion and means that there’s never any danger of things becoming staid or stagnant.
With only two of the album’s ten tracks (barely) clocking in at under the five minute mark, Frisson Noir is an album that veers towards the epic. That’s a sentence which is sure to please Tarja fans, but it’s also an example of an album that walks the fine line between an artist sating themselves creatively whilst giving their fans exactly what they want. Case in point being ‘The Eternal Return’, a cut on which Tarja pushes her vocals to the limit, showing off her full oeuvre by flitting between Valkyrie cries, operatic shrieks and banshee wails, but musically it’s pure epic symphonic metal, and if ever you were called on a quest to save the universe, ‘The Eternal Return’ would make the perfect soundtrack.
Frisson Noir has a fair amount of collaborations (on seven tracks) and this can often throw an album off kilter and upset the ballast, especially when big personalities imprint their own stamp on proceedings. Not so on this record, thanks mainly to the sheer variety of guests, some of whom might be surprising. Dani Filth (Crade Of Filth) adds his trademark squeal to ‘I Don’t Care’, both he and Tarja performing a duet, the satanic and angelic somehow existing in perfect “harmony”. Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers) pops up on ‘Against The Odds’, and gives things a heavy beat, ensuring that the album comes to a cataclysmic conclusion.
Frisson Noir makes for a welcome return and one which marks Tarja a contemporary force.
- Frisson Noir is released via earMUSIC on 12th June 2026.
- Tarja Official Website
Track List:
- Frisson Noir
- The Eternal Return
- Leap Of Faith
- At Sea
- Blaze forever
- The Trace Outlives
- Tango
- Anemoia
- I Don’t Care
- Against The Odds
