A Tribute To Carl Sagan

I confess I haven’t been listening to Nightwish since Tarja left the band. I always thought that her vocals were vital to the sound. I’m not a metal-head, but I always liked Nightwish, because I like the combination of oprea loke vocals and guitar riffs.

The latest single caught my attention though. The B-Side of their current single “Élan” is called Sagan, and it is a tribute to the great Carl Sagan, and his contribution in popularising cosmology to a wide public.

I think it’s wonderful, that Sagan has made such an impact to our society. that a heavy-metal band makes a song about him. Sagan’s speeches still move and inspire generations, although his groundbreaking series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage was fimed 35 years ago.

Swedish artist Erik Wernquist just recently published a stunningly beautiful short film called Wanderes, based on one of Sagan’s texts.

Nightwish didn’t stop there however. Their new album is a conceptual album, dedicated to Charles Darwin, and the theory of evolution. They have Prof. Richard Dawkins as a guest on this album (probably not singing though), The album, which will be available in the UK on March 30th, 2015, is called Endless Forms Most Beautiful, which is a direct quote from the finishing paragraph in Charles Darwin’s On The Origins Of Species:

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

Charles Darwin, On the Origin Of Species by Means of Natrural Selection

I think it’s great, that a rock band tries to tackle a scientific topic, and I’m really looking forward to listening to the album.