Marko Hietala - Mustan sydämen rovio (2019)

Marko Hietala - Mustan sydämen rovio (2019)

Tracklist front / back album covers

1. "Kiviä"   5:15

2. "Isäni ääni"   4:37

3. "Tähti, hiekka ja varjo"   5:01

4. "Kuolleiden jumalten poika"   4:41

5. "Laulu sinulle"   7:10

6. "Minä olen tie"   5:05

7. "Juoksen rautateitä"   3:51

8. "Vapauden kuolinmarssi"   5:02

9. "Unelmoin öisin"   5:38

10. "Totuus vapauttaa"   5:43

Total length:   52:03

Marko Hietala Band Members / Musicians

Marko Hietala – lead vocals, bass

Tuomas Wäinölä – guitar

Vili Ollila – keyboards

Anssi Nykänen – drums

Mustan Sydämen Rovio was re-released in English under the title Pyre of the Black Heart on 24 January 2020, also via Nuclear Blast. Hietala says he wrote the songs both in Finnish and in English, which facilitated translations. He was initially unsure whether he would release two different albums at once or one album half in Finnish, half in English, before making the decision of releasing two different albums on different dates.

The English-language release was followed by a European tour, with shows opened up by Oceanhoarse.

1. "Stones"   5:15

2. "The Voice of My Father"   4:37

3. "Star, Sand and Shadow"   5:01

4. "Dead God's Son"   4:42

5. "For You"   7:10

6. "I Am the Way"   5:05

7. "Runner of the Railways"   3:51

8. "Death March for Freedom"   5:02

9. "I Dream"   5:38

10. "Truth Shall Set You Free"   5:42

Total length:   52:03

Marko Hietala Band Members / Musicians

Marko Hietala – lead vocals, bass

Tuomas Wäinölä – guitar

Vili Ollila – keyboards

Anssi Nykänen – drums

Mustan Sydämen Rovio (Pyre of the Black Heart) is the debut solo album by Finnish singer and bassist Marko Hietala of Nightwish and Tarot fame, released on 24 May 2019 via Nuclear Blast.

Hietala is credited in the album with his birth name Marko, instead of Marco. He said he adopted the version with "c" when he was young and trying to sound "cool", but that now it doesn't matter to him anymore. He intends to be credited as Marko in all his future projects. He also referred to the "Marco" spelling as "the last lie I had constructed about myself".

An English version of the album was released on 24 January 2020.

Marko Tapani "Marco" Hietala (born 14 January 1966) is a Finnish heavy metal vocalist, bassist and songwriter. Internationally, he is best known as the former bassist, male vocalist and secondary composer to Tuomas Holopainen, of the symphonic metal band Nightwish. He was also the vocalist and bassist as well as composer and lyricist for the heavy metal band Tarot.

He was also a member of the supergroup Northern Kings, and portrayed one of the main characters in Ayreon's 2013 album The Theory of Everything.

Marko Hietala was born in Kuopio, and is the youngest child of the Hietala family. Hietala lived in Tervo until the age of 15, after which he moved to Kuopio to study classical guitar, vocals and musical theory in high school. In 1984, he and his brother Zachary formed the heavy metal band Tarot under the name Purgatory. In 1986, Tarot received a deal for their first album and went on tour. Before becoming a full-time musician, he worked as a live and studio sound engineer.

While on tour with Tarot in 1998, Marko had met the members of the band Nightwish in Siilinjärvi as they were an opening act for his band. Marko recalled having watched their performance: "I watched their show and thought their music was actually quite good at times. They had all this force and drama, so maybe some day they would successfully combine the two. But goddamn, they looked absolutely horrible on stage. Shorthaired guys just standing there – Tarja was a pretty girl but just as petrified, shrieking in the middle of the stage in her leather pants. Honestly, I assumed them to be just a momentary fad and thought they will fade away after six months or so. Luckily, of course, I was so wrong."

Hietala joined Nightwish in 2001 when Tuomas Holopainen and the band's manager called him and said that there would be a place in the band for a vocalist and a bass player. Century Child was his first Nightwish album, following the departure of previous bassist Sami Vänskä. He was a prominent guest musician in Delain, a project involving many members of the gothic and symphonic metal community. He also participated in the recording of Invitation, by Altaria, providing backing vocals. Hietala has also been part of the bands Sinergy and Northern Kings.

Upon his arrival to Nightwish, several songs were written to contain duets with then Nightwish vocalist Tarja Turunen, allowing songwriter and band leader Tuomas Holopainen to take advantage of Hietala's distinctive raucous voice to add a new dimension to the band. A famous example is Nightwish's cover of "The Phantom of the Opera", from the album "Century Child".

During Nightwish's shows, Turunen would take a break halfway through the set. Before Hietala joined the band, the band would perform an instrumental song during this time. After Hietala joined the band, they performed covers of well-known songs, with Hietala singing the lead vocal part in this break. The band has performed Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train", W.A.S.P.'s "Wild Child", Dio's "Don't Talk to Strangers", Megadeth's "Symphony of Destruction" and Pink Floyd's "High Hopes". Some of these songs have been put up for sale as well on various Nightwish album releases. Following Turunen's departure from Nightwish, Hietala was much more involved with the production of Dark Passion Play, which was released in September 2007. He sang some songs, completely, and wrote the music for the song "The Islander", on which he also plays acoustic guitar instead of bass. Hietala is also credited alongside Holopainen for co-writing the song "The Crow, the Owl and the Dove" from Nightwish's 2011 album, Imaginaerum.

In Delain, Hietala played bass for the album Lucidity and was also the main male vocalist on the album with featured vocals on the song The Gathering. He is also featured as vocalist in two of the songs on Delain's second album April Rain and two songs from Delain's fourth album The Human Contradiction.

In March 2009, Hietala joined the band Sapattivuosi. They cover Black Sabbath songs in Finnish. In this band, however, Hietala does not play bass; he only performs vocals.

On 1 April 2010 it was said that Hietala would leave the band to concentrate on a choir career. This was identified as an April Fool's joke, but was also a reference to his participation in Kuorosota (the localized Finnish version of Clash of the Choirs) in 2010. Hietala was the master of the Kuopio choir in the program's second season. He came second in the contest, losing in the finals to the Joensuu choir, headed by pop rock singer Ilkka Alanko. Tarot's single "I Walk Forever", from the Gravity of Light album, was performed for the first time by Hietala, Tommi Salmela and the Kuopio choir during Kuorosota 2010; other songs performed included "The Phantom of the Opera", which Hietala has covered with Nightwish as well.

In June 2010, Hietala joined the heavy metal supergroup HAIL! on two occasions, performing Black Sabbath's Neon Knights with Ripper Owens, Andreas Kisser, James LoMenzo and Paul Bostaph at two of their shows in Finland.

On 14 August 2013, Hietala was the first singer to be confirmed by Arjen Lucassen to guest on Ayreon's new album The Theory of Everything. In 2017 he joined Ayreon on stage for three shows at 013 Poppodium in Tilburg, the recording of these shows was later released as Ayreon's live album Ayreon Universe – The Best of Ayreon Live.

Hietala released his first solo album Mustan sydämen rovio in May 2019. He released the album under his birthname Marko Hietala and will be using the name also in his other projects in the future. Hietala has described his solo material as "hard prog". An English version of the album, titled Pyre of the Black Heart (Nuclear Blast), followed in January 2020. Joining him on the albums are drummer Anssi Nykänen, keyboardist Vili Ollila and guitarist Tuomas Wäinölä with whom he also toured in Finland in the summer and autumn of 2019. The band embarked on a European tour in February 2020.

In 2020, he participated in and won the Finnish edition of Masked Singer.

On 12 January 2021, Hietala announced his withdrawal from the public eye and departure from Nightwish. On 22 January 2021, Swedish symphonic metal band Therion released a music video for the song "Tuonela" that features Hietala.

Marko Hietala Discography Full

Solo albums

Mustan sydämen rovio – 2019 (re-released in English in 2020 as Pyre of the Black Heart)

Nightwish

2002 Century Child

2004 Once

2007 Dark Passion Play

2011 Imaginaerum

2015 Endless Forms Most Beautiful

2020 Human. :II: Nature.

Northern Kings

2007 Reborn

2008 Rethroned

Sapattivuosi

2009 Ihmisen merkki

Sinergy

2000 To Hell and Back

2002 Suicide by My Side

Raskasta joulua

2004 Raskasta Joulua

2006 Raskaampaa joulua

2013 Raskasta Joulua

2014 Ragnarok Juletide

2014 Raskasta Joulua 2

Conquest

1999 Worlds Apart

2000 Slave to the Power: The Iron Maiden Tribute (on the song "The Evil That Men Do")