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Wintersun - Wintersun


*
=Staff's pick

Beyond The Dark Sun*
Winter Madness
Sleeping Stars*
Battle Against Time
Death And The Healing
Starchild*
Beautiful Death*
Sadness And Hate


Genre Death Metal
Jari Mäenpää
Vocals
Tracks 8
Jari Mäenpää
Guitar
Runningtime 54 Min.
-
Guitar
Label Nuclear Blast
Jukka Koskinen
Bass
Release 13 Sept. 2004
Kai Hahto
Drums
Country Finland
-
Keyboards
Similar artists Children Of Bodom, Imperanon, Ensiferum

In the department "heavy riffs, significant use of harmony guitar- and keyboard leads, death/black metal-esque vocals in true finnish style", the time has now come to examine the new band of the from Ensiferum recently departed singer and multi instrumentalist Jari Mäenpää. The resemblence with his former band is, if not striking, at least obvious. The vocals that are taking that shape every now and then, the way of building the songs, the folk metal parts - it is all there.

It starts very promising with a great uptempo song, containing everything you can wish for when it comes to this genre. Intense, and with great melodies they kickstart it all, and everything from start to finish during the 2.38 is very good, and the level is already set high for what to expect. Perhaps too high? With the next song they increase the tempo even more, and show example of a mixture of styles, from blastbeats, fragments of more folk inspired bits which are similar to what he did in Ensiferum, and nice guitar leads that carry the song onwards. It shows that they to some extent master the art of mixing tempo and styles. Next out is a midtempo and more epic bit with some folk metal elements, and falls under the category average. The tempo rise again, and that a lot, with Battle Against Time, and once again the folk tunes are present. Blast beats, folk like choirs and good guitar work all mixed in a nice package.

Another slower song follows, this time with clean vocals, and it once again drops a bit in quality. Nothing special, as nothing much happens, apart from an instrumental section with great solos and riffs. Harmonic, moody, and show proof of good musicianship. The clean vocals don't really improve anything either, quite the contrary. Back to speed with Starchild, which starts nice with a great melody, followed by uptempo standard riffing, leading up to a Ensiferum sounding bridge and refrain. Above par, but here as well as in some other songs on this album, there tends to be parts of the song that serve mostly as a fill out section. There are many peaks, and they are good, but the parts that are pretty non-saying and don't work as well drag down the overall grade.

Beautiful Death is a more heavier song based on riffs, but still with the melodies intact. Here it is noticable that In Flames and Dark Tranquillity are valid references also, since the rolling riffs and the vocals are at some points similar to the earlier work of the aformentioned bands. Once again the song is a bit unstructured from time to time, though, and that is both a strenght and a weakness or them. It is nice with a bit of new thinking and that they mix styles, but most of the time it does not have the effect that's intended. Sadness And Hate closes the deal with its 10 minutes, and early Amorphis comes to mind, due to the folk tunes and nice groove. An enjoyable epic effort in midtempo.

All in all a good effort, but the old saying "we have heard it before" comes to mind, and the fact is that it does not rise above anything that Children Of Bodom or any other of their finnish colleagues have previously released. All finnish bands usually have a very high lowest level, and Wintersun is no exception. They just don't (yet) have that little extra that makes you go "wow".

Production
Vocals
Compositions

9

8,5

6

 
Summary



6,5 chalices of 10 - Tommy

Related links:

www.wintermadness.net