Sale for Nightwish virtual concert tix ends tomorrow night.

Thanks for the heads up.

Big fan of the band's work overall but the last record was a letdown to me, and with the focus being on that plus Marco gone I'm having a hard time grabbing this.

Interesting observation, prplhze2000. Comparing ANYONE to Miles though is not fair as he famously set the highest bar in that regard of anyone I can think of. (Not a fan of his 80s/90s stuff in general but at least you can say he didn't stay in the same place.) But point taken, we'll see if this invigorates them and yields another creative high.

It's kinda hard to fathom that Floor has now been the lead female singer almost as long as Tarja was.

Coltrane and other jazz guys followed a similari path with similar results.

Fripp uses the same philosophy.

He never has a problem getting top musicians to play with him. Look at his lineups and where those guys came from or went to.

The result is King Crimson's music always sounded fresh and never stale even if never did bust the charts.

Minor nitpick - the record is Endless Forms Most Beautiful, in which the track TGSoE is the epic 24 minute finale.

I have been less enthused about the newest NW album than the last few, since the first record with Annette which was conceived mostly before she replaced Tarja, so most of the songs weren't really suited well to her. While not a big fan of Anette's, I thought Imaginaerum was a very solid record with some new directions. So it fits the paradigm you mentioned about new elements / band members, inspiring creativity. And then they found a new gear with Floor.

BTW, I completely disagree with putting Coltrane in that pattern - with the caveat that he only had about 10 years (less really) as a leader. He kept his classic quartet with Tyner, Garrison and Jones together for several years and Trane himself was the impetus for its dissolution as his sound kept evolving past what some members could embrace. McCoy famously said that he couldn't hear himself play any more and left. Coltrane always had one of the strongest inner drives to push in new directions of any musician, and formed different groups to record those ideas. For example, Africa/Brass with the expanded group including Eric Dolphy and an expanded brass section.