Hey! How freaky is this? Not only is the next album on the list by a Finnish band, recorded in the same year as Finntroll’s, but it has a logo which looks like that of ReinXeed, who I only reviewed a day or so ago!
Wintersun --- Wintersun --- 2004 (Nuclear Blast)
Recommended by JustinJJustin
We are however back to melodic death metal, though with a symphonic thrown in too, so to be honest I’m not sure what to think! At least these guys sing in English, assuming I can understand the vocal, which given the subgenre is by no means certain. This is their debut album, and they’re a spinoff from some other Finnish outfit --- Ensiferum, I think: yeah, Ensiferum --- who are themselves a Folk Metal band, so there may be some interesting mixes in here. But I’ve not had the best luck with death metal --- melodic or otherwise --- so I’ll reserve judgement for now.
Starts off oddly enough like a Power Metal song, then dark but not (!) growly vocals intone some lines before they break into a big scratchy scream. But hey, it’s not too bad and “Beyond the dark sun” opens the album well. Some great guitar work from I would assume two axemen? Wow, no! It’s another two-man outfit, with mainman Jari Mäenpää taking everything bar the drums. That’s guitar, bass, keyboards and vocals. Impressive. “Winter madness” is a longer song, mostly riding on the frenetic guitar and blastbeat drums, but it’s a little hard to pick out any highlights as it’s all just fast and powerful with no specific melody or passage I can nail my flag to. Good though.
Seems Mäenpää was fired from his parent band when he tried to record this album, so I guess it’s very personal and important to him. As he told Metaleater.com:
” Lyrically it's quite a personal record, but there's a little bit of fantasy also. Actually, you can understand the songs by many ways and meanings, which is great. But underneath all the metaphors to stars, space, vast and cold winter landscapes, it's all about my personal life: my feelings, emotions, thoughts, dreams, visions and hallucinations. [...] Every song is a highlight and important to me in their own ways. "Beautiful Death" and "Battle Against Time" were therapeutic to write, because they deal with the negative sides of my life and it was good to get those feelings on paper and into music. "Death and the Healing", "Sleeping Stars" and "Sadness and Hate" are very old songs that still live on, so they have sentimental value.” (Copied direct from Wiki page
Wintersun (album) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
“Sleeping stars” sees a departure from the frantic, breakneck speed of the first two tracks, with a slower, swinging rhythm that’s almost, but not quite, in ballad territory. Kind of like a saga or something, very stately and majestic with a lot of keyboards and more restrained guitar for the most part. There’s a really nice orchestral style keyboard to end and then we ramp the tempo back up as we engage in a “Battle against time”, with a very effective male chorus in the opening and a return to that dark, intoned vocal we heard at the beginning of the album. Picks up speed then and the vocal goes back to Mäenpää’s “normal” style, though the chorus/choir helps to dull the edges of that sharp, acerbic voice a little.
A very personal song to Mäenpää, “Death and the healing” recounts his own recovery from TB, contracted during his compulsory service in the Finnish military and which necessitated the removal of part of his lung. I may not like his singing, but he has a strong voice and you would not think he had anything wrong with his lungs, so fair play to him. Great guitar and keyboard intro with those choral vocals, and Mäenpää drops to the lower register for the vocal on this most intimate song. He compares himself to a wounded bird as he sings
”A windstorm dropped a bird from the sky/ It fell to the ground and its wings broke and died/ But when the time got by/ Back to sky it flied (sic)/ Cause the wings healed in time and the bird was I.”
Although only just short of eight minutes, Mäenpää has created his very own death metal version of “2112” by Rush in the five-part “Starchild”, with part I (“Wanderer of time”) opening with a big hammerfist guitar rocking along in a very Power Metal vein, then part II (“Burning star”) is much slower and more pastoral, with a hard guitar edge as Mäenpää drops momentarily to the more recognisable vocal before ramping back up for part III (“The Creation”). Letting loose on the keys he blasts along like some demented carny, Kai Hanto struggling to match him on the drums. Part IV (“The sea of stars”) seems to have a violin leading the melody, though I guess it’s on the keys and part V (“Finale”) wraps everything up in one last fretfest.
The two longest tracks close the album, with “Beautiful death” allowing Mäenpää to slip the leash and allow his fury full vent with the darker, higher vocal, guitar holding court as choral vocals swell in the background like a supporting army. Some really nice church organ is soon kicked aside by Hanto’s percussive fusillade, indeed Hanto really shines on this track, showing us what he can do when he’s given his head. The closer then is the longest track, just over ten minutes. “Sadness and hate” opens with a doleful guitar that quickly kicks up into a hard, angry one but when it gets going, with a big scream from Mäenpää, it has a really nice swinging melody, almost balladic, though not really. For a ten minute song there are not that much in the way of lyrics, so I expect some interesting musical interludes.
Happily, Mäenpää either changes his vocal style here or it is augmented by another as the lyric prepares to run out and swaying guitar takes the tune, getting sort of medieval at times with a lilting, almost pastoral melody. Actually it seems the lyric is repeated during the song, lasting up to the ninth minute, leaving us to fade out on a celestial, ethereal keyboard passage
TRACKLISTING
1. Beyond the dark sun
2. Winter madness
3. Sleeping stars
4. Battle against time
5. Death and the healing
6. Starchild
(i) Wanderer of time
(ii) Burning star
(iii) The creation
(iv) The sea of stars
(v) Finale
7. Beautiful death
8. Sadness and hate
I wouldn’t go so far as to say the vocals ruined this for me, but I would probably have appreciated it a lot more if I could have understood what was being sung. Okay that’s not fair: I could understand it (mostly through having a lyric sheet) but it wasn’t the sort of singing I like to listen to . That aside, there is some excellent music on this album and it’s well worth a listen if you are into this particular subgenre, or even if you’re not. For a man with a repaired lung, Jani Mäenpää sure knows how to give it his all, and I just wonder if his previous band are regretting the decision to let him go now?