KINGS OF TIME

"Kings of time" sounds more mature and more sophisticated, but at the same time more aggressive and Dynamical, the songs are more interrelated and the album feels more like an entity. The music has moments of Peace and Serenity Inserted with the powerful and aggressive ones because of this the overall feeling turns always in two directions that make you perceive the dynamical changes.

The tracks have no name and it's kind of boring but I don't really care about this. In the previous album the violin doesn't sound too much just in some moments but here they use this instrument with more Intelligence and Capacity. The pieces last longer and they use more ambient passages to give the song a more intricate feeling. There are some vocals (like in the first piece) but only in few tracks, the whole album it's again instrumental. Some people says that its boring because they don't sing but I think they express better the feelings they have when they record this. The guitarist "Harri Sippola" is truly inspired and also Sandra Mahlamäki is in her best condition The keyboards sounds more like a grand piano but in some passages they make strange sounds that enrich the music.

They made a 10 minute song and I think it's the best because it have all the things I mentioned before and sometimes sounds a little bit jazzy but Unexpectedly they start to whistle like in a old west movie (maybe because they love morricone's music) really amazing; this piece in particular sounds very Powerful and Inspiring. To slow down the emotions the next track it's more soft and nostalgic really beautiful piece. Other beautiful song it's the fourth track with an excellent violin Interpretation and some guitar effects that connects to the next track and make it like if where only one piece, really amazing.

Magyar posse really have developed a new sound here they keep searching for new things like in the first album and they probably reach their peak in the next album (I hope). The post rock its always being renewed and Magyar Posse surely helps to the progression of the subgenre because of this I can say that they need more attention.

4.5 star's almost a masterpiece, excellent addition to any experimental/post rock collection and a must for all the subgenre lovers and Enthusiasts.

BAMBA

Magyar Posse's Kings of Time is a reasonable enough effort, but I felt that it's a bit too much of a rehash of their first album to really engage me. It's not that it's a bad album per se - but I suspect many listeners will find themselves preferring whichever one they happened to hear first. The main difference is that, to my ears at least, the band seem to be edging a bit closer to what I'd think of as a "standard" post-rock sound - you know, the sort of thing Explosions In the Sky and other bands who follow the Godspeed/Mogwai model without really having anything particularly clever to say for themselves play.

Post-rock hasn't been very crowded subgenre in Finland. There's still no serious competitor -- perhaps apart from Plain Fade -- for Magyar Posse to be remembered as the best Finnish post-rock group ever. The Pori-based band recorded just three albums before calling it a day in 2012, but each of them is an excellent and, in a good way, representative item of the subgenre. Recorded in 2003 and released two years after the debut We Will Carry You Over The Mountains, Kings of Time contains seven untitled tracks. According to guitarist Harri Sippola, they simply didn't invent any names good enough. Whatever the reason is, the namelessness functions well as it gives the listener total freedom to form his/her own unique inner visions from the lyricless and very cinematic music. Instead of a regular cover leaflet/booklet, there are four two-sided cards featuring graphic art by Herra Ylppö (in a Soviet-like style; see the album cover here).

Maiju Peltomäki and Finnish-American experimental artist Vuk add some human voices to the album, but Magyar Posse's music is instrumental all the way. The opening part is the second longest at 7:31. For the first half it just paints an abstract and spacey soundscape, almost like early Tangerine Dream, until the entry of softly played acoustic guitar and hazy female voice. On the more intense 2nd part violin and female voice colour the typically gritty post-rock sound. Both the sonic details and the sorrowful melodies bring Ennio Morricone's film music in mind. This association lingers nearby throughout the 48-minute suite, which is not a bad thing in my opinion.

The dynamics are wide along the album that uses dramatic percussion, strong piano clusters and desperately wailing voices, and very delicate and dreamy nuances as well, but the melancholic atmosphere is never broken by an irritating sense of edginess just for the sake of it. The compositions also rely sincerely on the melodies that are full of emotion. All in all, Kings of Time is relatively accessible as a post-rock album, never losing the listener's attention with directionless sonic mess. For a good reason the Finnish rock critics named it as one of the year's finest domestic albums, and after 14 years it still sounds timeless.

MAGYAR POSSE released their second album KINGS OF TIME to remarkable success in their native Finland. This Pori based quintet was treated to several awards and even touted as having created one of the finest albums in all of Finnish history with this 2004 sophomore recording KINGS OF TIME. Unlike the debut "We Will Carry You Over The Mountains," which pretty much matched the overall album sound to the title, KINGS OF TIME remains a mysterious number with a menacing scary red cover that evokes a nostalgia for the communist era of the Soviet Union along with seven anonymous titles that seamlessly flow together to create a greater sum of the parts as the moods shift from placid pleasantries to the more upbeat torrid tumultuous torrents.

KINGS OF TIME pretty much picks up where the debut left off. Many similarities are stark such as the general Mogwai meets Godspeed! You Black Emperor post-rock paradigm of ratcheting up cyclical grooves, soft guitar riff laden passages, synthesizer drenched atmospheres and the expected ratcheting up effect finding climactic crescendoes laced with pleasant Ennio Morricone styled melancholic melodies. However there are many differences as well. Firstly, there are a few more guest musicians providing more instrumentation including the sax, a violin and extra vocals and percussion. The inclusion of the violin makes KINGS OF TIME have a much more dramatic effect than the debut and brings it closer to times to Godspeed's classic sound than the more laid back Mogwai blueprint of the debut.

This album has a more varied feel not only in its instrumentation but moods expressed and it's virtually impossible to distinguish tracks as they are true shapeshifters. The first track throws you completely off guard since it doesn't sound like a post-rock album at all but rather an experimental space noise effect that finds you free floating in the vacuous orbit of some planet but the post-rock elements quickly step into line on the second track which finds vocals leading the guitar, violin and drums in an almost Magma zeuhl styled operatic manner. Yet another feature of this second album is that more wordless vocals find their supporting the otherwise instrumental album's mood setting flow. The third track introduces another distinguishing feature of KINGS OF TIME and that is the piano. Graced with more piano runs and organ sounds, this album finds a more symphonic prog vibe usurping the lysergic Krautrock of the debut however the atmospheric touches do nurture psychedelic leanings.

Despite the menacing album cover, this one really comes off as mostly warm and inviting because of the keyboards but not always. Track five is acoustic guitar based and as the tracks continue, they offer wealth of diversity that includes the "classic" Mogwai simplicity as well as the Godspeed! thunderous cacophony but always graced by beautiful melodies that range from peaceful to utterly frightening. The comparisons of MAGYAR POSSE's music to that of soundtrack's is quite apparent as a series of wordless melodies evoke different emotional responses much the way the composers of film often do. Overall, KINGS OF TIME delivers the goods on an epic style of post rock fortified with darkened Gothic overtones, interesting deviations from the expected march through the motifs and murky ever changing atmospheric cloud covers changing the degree of how much sunlight reaches the ground at any given moment. With haunting vocal accompaniments finding their way in between the guitar attacks, violin sweeps and cyclical rhythmic grooves, MAGYAR POSSE deliver a competent and entertaining second offering.

Magyar Posse's second album is much more in line with traditional post rock, especially when compared to their slightly shythmic, krautrockish debut. This has much more focus on the loud-soft dynamic found throughout standard post rock, yet still undoubtedly manage to be a but above a lot of the generic stuff out there by merit of their exellent compositions and melodies. The band also ends up having a slightly darker sound to it when compared to the ethereal We Will Carry You Over The Mountains, but still is mostly a very pleasant listen.

Immediately, one of the biggest changes I noticed was the increase of vocalisations throughout, with every track other than IV containing some sort of wordless vocal element to it, each time lending itself absolutely prefectly to the music being played. The album also has a far more mysterious feel to it, with the deep red colour, the more ambiguous picture, and the song titles which are nothing more than roman numerals. This definitely adds something to the overall atmosphere of the album, and is a great complement to the more varied nature of the songs, with I being a very slow, calm track, while II adds an absolutely jaw dropping violin that both adds a lot of emotion to hte music, as well as a darker edge to it in parts. It's track III that really sells me on this album however, with an excellent buildup all the way through, with an incredible amount of intensity particularly heightened by the extremely prominent, repetitive drum beat, with the additions of violins bringing a hint of beauty to the extremely dissonant nature of everything else that's going on, before it all transforms into a simply divine section of music. bringing in the vocals as everything moves at a faster pace, all the noise fading away into utter bliss. I do find that the next 2 songs, particularly V, don't have quite the same magic found earlier on in the album, instead being more pleasant than impactful or beautiful, which is thankfully amended greatly in the final 2 tracks, whic end up being incredible in their perfect subtlety, building exquisitely and having some of the best melody in the album. While they don't quite live up to III, they're certainly still more proof that this band has a lot going for them.

Overall, this album is far more complex, technical, and all around more accomplished than their already superb debut, with more variation in each track while maintaining the relative minimalism of post rock. Despite this, I do find the middle portion after III to be somewhat dull and uninspired, whic does take a bit of a toll on the album overall. Even so, this is still an exceptional post rock album by an exceptional band, and I greatly recommend that you check it out, since unlike their debut, this one has enough inspiraiton and amazing high points that it could possibly be enjoyed by those not normally too big on post rock, well, III at the very least.

Best songs: II, III, VII

Weakest songs: IV, V

Verdict: More or less a must listen for fans of post rock, and I'm assuming it could be a reasonable listen for those who don't normally listen to it, although don't expect it to change your view on the genre.