SUDEN UNI

6/10

"Suden Uni" although feeling like a collection of drinking songs, is a fun and consistent listen.

"Suden Uni" is legendary Finnish act Moonsorrow's debut album, which will be shortly followed that same year by a much more well developed album, "Voimasta Ja Kunniasta", one of the most solid releases of the band's discography. In fact this album does not stand at the same level as the sophomore LP, however, it is proof that Moonsorrow have taken a further step ahead from the previous demos, towards the path of maturity.

Moonsorrow adapt a cleaner production for their full length, compared to the rawness of the EPs/Demos, and start to incorporate a lot more Nordic Folk influenced melodies in their music, as well as exotic instruments like the accordion and the famous jaw harp, but also several keyboards are used. But compared to future albums these folkish instruments are used in a much more subtle way, and serve the sole purpose to enrich the sound; they don't play a particularly important role within a song. This said, it's easy to imagine how much less atmospheric and more straight-forward this LP is, again compared to the complexity of future Moonsorrow albums, thus more riff driven and melodic.

"Sudden Uni" means "A Wolf's Dream" in Finnish: by only the title, you can tell what Mooonsorrow's lyrics deal with, and, if you're familiar with the band, it will be very easy to guess the main themes of the album: Viking./Nordic wars, proud warriors, Gods, but also normal people and their sense of honor. the first track is probably the one that is the oddest of all, seemingly coming from a completely different style: "Son of the God Of Thunder" (English translation) is about a young, teenage God who gets expelled by his father from the clouds, because of his futile and reckless behavior. Other than that, the lyrics deal with the above mentioned themes in a casual way, without being particularly evocative.

Because of it's straight-forwardness, "Suden Uni" in some points seems to be a collection of drinking songs, instead of profound, epic poems of music. This impression obviously does not occur in every song: for example, in the eleven minute "1065: Time", there are some good doses of epicness in the songwriting and the structure of the song is fantastic, which includes also more ambient friendly passages, mostly in the first few minutes. But the rest of the songs offer little variation, and some are not at all as memorable as they should be: "As Eternal" and "Son Of The God Of Thunder" come a little close to annoy me, however, standing in the middle of them (according to the tracklist) is "Pakanavedet II", much more accessible and interesting, thanks to the massive presence of the Jew Harp and fun, heavy rhythms. . "Home Of the Wind?" is a little too simple and banal for my taste, but it still has interesting arrangements overall.

"Suden Uni" can be a fun listen for sure, and even if some melodies come a little too close to being corny and clichéd, it's still a solidly structured release for Moonsorrow, an album that is the natural predecessor of "Voimasta Ja Kunniasta", which uses a more complex and solid formula.

After a string of demos proving that they had what it took to master the art of becoming mere black metal clones of their Norwegian neighbors, the Finnish Pagan folk metal band MOONSORROW that formed in 1995 in Helsinki had differentiated themselves enough from the pack and released their debut album as the old millennium was swallowed up by the Northern lights and a new change of guard had occurred. While present on the demos, the Pagan folk elements were obscured in a lo-fi cacophonous din of buzzsaw feedback and pissed cat screams. On their debut album SUDEN UNI ("Wolf's Dream") cousins Ville Sorvali and Henri Sorvali added on Marko Tarvonen for percussion as well as an army of guests who provide nothing more than handclaps!

Right from the very first track "Ukkosenjumalan poika" ("Son of the God of Thunder") it's clear that MOONSORROW had latched onto a style that is theirs alone. While the black metal is as ferocious as ever with heavily distorted guitar and bass fuzziness, the compositions are now composed as Pagan folk melodies that utilize epic hummable catchiness with the black metal augmenting the intensity into overdrive and often dominating to the point where the folk is buried. While the band would prove shortly to blend these elements together even more seamlessly with their second album of the same year "Voimasta Ja Kunniasta," the result of the blending of blatant folk melodies on keyboard, accordion and mouth harp in full company of black metal shrieks, guitar fury and the insane drumming prowess of Tarvonen was quite novel at the time and is quite satisfying even at this early stage as it seems once MOONSORROW hit pay dirt with their signature sound that any variations of their elements dominating was secondary to the strength of the compositions churned out.

At this point MOONSORROW hadn't quite ventured into the world of progressive metal as with their later releases but the tracks on SUDEN UNI are ripe for the picking as each track exudes an epic feel with several extended length tracks clocking in over six minutes with the profound "1065: Aika" just squeaking over the eleven minute mark. On SUDEN UNI the beauty is in the pacing of the elements as each synth drenched moody atmosphere builds up intensity as the guitars and drum fury are coaxed from their reticence and then allowed to unleash hypnotic fury into the musical patterns that provide a simultaneous epic charm and sonic assault. Ville Sorvali's vocals have improved big time as his pissed off cat shrieks have become more distinguished shrieks and offers some clean vocal Viking metal moments as well although the band dislike that term and insist on being referred to as Pagan black folk metal.

For me SUDEN UNI is not a weak debut in the least despite the elements not being as neatly tucked together as cleverly as on future albums. This one is more straightforward in nature but not one bit less satisfying and actually sounds more diverse than some of the epic albums with sprawling never-ending tracks like "V: Hävitetty." SUDEN UNI has been released in two significant forms. The first release with the fire orange album cover with a ghostly wolf howling into the blood red horizon and re-released in 2003 with the cover art i prefer with a human body donning a wolf's head holding a spiral-ended staff of some sort. This edition includes the bonus track "Tulkaapa äijät!" ("Come Along, Fellows!") which is probably the closest thing to a black metal drinking song that MOONSORROW has ever recorded. While not a vital experience in relationship to the rest of the album since it doesn't have the epic feel, it nonetheless is a nice little lighthearted (black metal style) closer. SUDEN UNI is hardly a throwaway debut release. This is a major step from the demo laden abyss from whence they came and a true declaration of blackened folk metal innovation.

Finnish Dropkick Murphys play hokey Euro Schlock

A quick listen of this, [what I thought to be] the debut album by Finnish Pagan-Folk Metal band Moonsorrow: Suden Uni. My first thought is this: What on earth is this cover they have for it on Spotify? An upright anthropomorphized wolf-man?! Ok then. [After listening, it fits hahaha!!!!] My first taste of the band is [actually was, thanks to yours truly haha] their highest rated here: Kivenkantaja (2003).

"Ukkosenjumalan poika": Pretty cool riffs, seriously. The ending was a winner.

"Köyliönjärven jäällä (Pakanavadet II)": Wow, that's a lot of umlauts. What is this, a polka? When the acoustic guitar comes in around minute 1, very nice, actually. Hard for me, periodically, not to draw parallels to Opeth, but these specific moments are fleeting. Unusual rhythm? Sure. Once. It was decent.

"Kuin ikuinen": A little hokey. The drums were good (at one point haha). I'm over it.

"Tuulen koti, Aaltojen koti": Soft acoustic number? Nay. Pretty big. Not pretty good.

"Pakanajuhla": Alright, boys! Queue up "Sea Shanty 2"! haha. I just can't picture what kind of person listens to this. This is basically the same as Irish music: horrible haha.

"1065: Aika": Starts off low and slow, spacy. Wow... what a riveting 11 minutes... /s ( -__- )

And then the whole affair ends on the title track. Pointless haha.

Bonus track "Tulkaapa äijät!" is just as bad as the rest. Hokey cringe.