I have a bad habit of setting all music I listen to to my inner worlds. M10M has hit me so close to the heart that I'm now painting a trilogy of illustrations that started from a vision I got from Shadows Temple and extended into a fuller story once I hear Nocturnal Opera as a whole. I'll post them here once they're done. (Won't be for several months, but whatever.)
To randomly list a few that have given me fully developed images rather than feelings...
Dialogue Symphonie: Three people in a catherdral -- one wounded and dying, one ascending the stairs as if to heaven, only to watch the last -- an angel -- at the top jump to its death at the end.
Pessimiste: strange supernatural demon-like creatures with wings of steel in a dead land, climbing on the ruins of a tower
Shadows Temple: A ball at sunset, with hundreds of people in old fashioned clothes spinning and dancing. Then there is also a strange courtyard made of marble with dark columns, and a single couple dancing there. The man is in love, possessive and passionate. The woman is dead inside. Near the end of the song it progresses to night, and I see them being wed in a forest.
The Prophet: A war between beautiful, inhuman creatures. I get the sense that whatever they are fighting for is wrong, and ultimately destroys them all.
Vestige: The same man from Shadows Temple, serenading his lover. She can't hear him.
Mephisto Waltz: Again, the man is singing. but now he's not singing to her, he singing for her sorrow. He's finally realized he can't be loved by her.
The entire Nocturnal Opera album plays out like a story for me between the two lovers... their entire relationship was encompassed in Shadows Temple, and built upon with the album as whole. (Invite to Immorality is a warning, Nocturnal Romance is how they met, etc...) I didn't know how the story ended until I reached the end of the CD: the man dies, corrupted by his own broken heart. And the last image I get is of the woman on a hill at dawn, leaning against his tombstone. But she's not crying. I don't think she ever felt anything.
Mana does fun things to my head. :]