WINTERSUN

I love the four seasons and the way they can change our understanding of the world. Every time they shift, it's as if our moods and perceptions are shifting with them. And as such, they can each bring out a beautiful variety of emotions and vivid imagery in their wake. That's why baroque violinist and composer Antonio Vivaldi had such great success with his famous composition The Four Seasons. With every season, certain stylistic deviations were introduced to signify its characteristics; for instance, the sprightly and festive feel of the legendary 'Spring' movement of the piece. Now, before I go any further, I'm not against someone in 2017 presenting us with a modern-day update of a timeless classic with a timeless theme. But when I heard that one of metal's premier musicians and procrastinators Jari Maenpaa was behind the project with his primary project Wintersun, my eyebrow was more than raised' and not in a good way, really. I once loved Wintersun, a band whose first album was among my favorite modern metal debuts and provided a glimpse to a once-promising future for the band. But between the gradual dip in quality and the waiting time between albums, Jari seemed to be an artist who could only answer high expectations with false promises. But I'm always ready to keep my mind open and think positively, so I'm ready to dive into this new piece with open ears. Let's go season by season, shall we?

Spring - The Season of Genre Cliches

We plunge into Spring, a bright and colorful season. But in the world of Wintersun, the skies remain as gray as ever. The cheap keyboards give a mood of cheap dollar-store melancholy, and the shameful production values seal the deal before the experience gets off the ground. I don't even want to hear the rest, but I press on. The season of spring is apparently devoid of its usual life, and its generic cookie-cutter riffs are as recycled as they were on the last album. The percussion sounds like the drumset was wrapped in a giant paper bag to siphon it of all its power, then beaten senselessly over and over in the same two or three tempos. There are some 'creepy' (I use this word hilariously lightly, hence the quotation marks) spoken word parts, I suppose in an attempt to enhance the atmosphere. But it's remarkable how little Jari's evolved as a singer, pretty much using his most familiar cleans and growls in the most predictable ways. The more I dig into the band's discography, it seems ever more evident that Wintersun are only capable of conveying the season of their namesake (even then, not in very interesting ways). I only hear cold, distant, passionless blandness. If this is the sound of spring, I want to skip the season altogether.

Summer - The Season in Which Experimentation Meets Redundancy

At least there's a bit more effort as we approach the season of Summer. There's a decent acoustic guitar buildup in the intro, even though it bears a bit too much resemblance to 'Sadness and Hate' in the notation and guitar tone. The tempo is more Opeth-like and the anthemic clean singing is neat, but there's not enough to differentiate this season from the one preceding it. That is, except for the admittedly nice folk interlude in which folk and sitar sounds are integrated to add some atmosphere. Still, there isn't nearly enough of a 'wow' factor to any of this to excuse a 12-minute running time, and that's a criticism seems to run through the entire recording. For the record, the lyrics are also a load of garbage. Check this out:

"In the dark ruin the grey mountains sing A sad song of winter and the howling wind Visions of the past in the haunting dreams Under the dead sky, under the withered trees"

If that cliched nonsense is Jari's idea of high art, then my high school alternative rock band was full of Shakespearian poetry.

Autumn - The Season of Brooding, Brooding, and More Brooding' and Dark Riffs!

We kick off Autumn with some dark tremolo riffs to give an evil, black metal-oriented sound' spooky! Too bad the thin production makes the blast beats sound like trash. Beyond that, the mixing is so horrible that the drums overpower any of the riffing or other guitar licks we're supposed to make out. I'm glad we're finally listening to a song that comes a little closer to representing the weather and feel of its chosen season, but I'd like to actually hear the songwriting too! Granted, it's nothing special. The keyboards are still bland and gimmicky, and the melodic death metal-inspired riffs are just as meandering and unengaging as ever. Somewhere around the middle, Jari uses a deep spoken word vocal style that makes him sound like Dani Filth' it's somewhat interesting, but mostly seems like a means of distracting us from the boring 6/8-time riff and its directionless lead guitar work. The solo that follows is just some generic shredding too, so it's really not very interesting. Just trust me: Autumn may try to sound sinister, but Jari's not inspired enough to convey this properly.

Winter - The Season Wintersun Knows

We finally come to our final season, the season of Winter. And, lo and behold, this is actually the best piece in the collection. There's some nice buildup in the icy synths, generating a mood both eerie and depressing. The actual title of the track is 'Loneliness,' and the doomy tempo is a fine demonstration of such an emotion. The vocals are a bit melodramatic at times, but at least I'm hearing something other than the bland growls that have dominated the other seasons. Jari sounds more anguished and desperate here, fitting the theme of the composition and its blustery vibe like a glove. Alas, not everything is perfect here either. The tune seems to stick to the same tempo for most of its duration, making it a slog to sit through to the end. As usual, there's not enough experimentation or new instrumental perspective on this season to justify a 13-minute closer to an already-overlong mess of an album. Also, the production is still pretty atrocious, but now I'm sounding like a broken record.

The forest is teeming with dread.

The four seasons can be open to such fruitful depictions and fantastic musical avenues, but Wintersun manages only to produce a small handful of these. Whenever I hear The Forest Seasons, I don't hear the sound of fresh ground being broken. I don't hear an exciting new aural adventure of both aggression and beauty. I don't hear a band displaying a new or interesting take on a promising concept. I hear the sound of dread. I hear a project that has long passed its expiration date even after just three albums.

Most distressingly, I hear thousands of loyal Indiegogo funders being screwed over by one egotistical Finn.

But 8 years is a long time to wait for a follow up album. The delays in recording and releasing this album stemmed from the fact that Wintersun were (and still are) a small, relatively unheard of progressive metal band with only a small following. Nuclear Blast, their record label, understandably didn't want to commit the advance of money that it was going to take to produce 'Time I'. The production standards and absurdly high level of electronic orchestration that the Wintersun front-man and lead composer, Jari Maenpaa, wanted to put into the 'Time I' album were beyond the financial reach of the band, and also beyond their technical reach. Simply put the computer technology at the time just couldn't keep up with all of the VST synths that Jari wanted on each track. His reach exceeded his grasp on the technical side of things.

But it didn't stop them - it just took the band a lot longer to record and produce 'Time I' than it should have done. So, was it worth the wait? We've had 'Time I' for a few years now (at the time of writing this review) and its an album which has received a lot of attention from me. But I can't help thinking is this really 8 years worth of material? After all the disc length is only 40 minutes, and there are only 3 lengthy songs on the album. And really there are only two excellent songs and one, dare I say it, fairly average song, at least by Wintersun standards.

The opening 20 minutes of music, specifically the tracks 'When Time Fades Away' and 'Sons Of Winter And Stars' are utterly sublime. The last 10 minutes of music with the track 'Time' is equally great. But somewhere in the middle of the album it loses me a little bit.

So what about the music? Well, we have highly orchestral progressive death metal with an oriental twist. The album is utterly polished, which doesn't surprise me considering how fastidious the band have been in recording this album. The production is good, if a little sterile at times, but everything is in its place. There are a lot of layers to this album, a lot of synths and under-currents of melody which aren't apparent upon the first few listens. This is an album which takes time to absorb and learn. In the vein of other progressive death metal bands there are a mixture of extreme metal vocals, screams and cleanly sung parts. No disrespect to Jari Maenpaa but I consider him a better guitarist than a vocalist.

Wintersun told us at the time of release that this album would be the first of a two-parter, and that we couldn't judge this one without hearing the second part. But as of mid-2015 we have no signs of the second part to this so we have to judge it on its own. Its good, polished, highly technical and progressive. But when I think it took 8 years to produce I have to wonder is this the best it could have been? This is definitely somewhere between 3 and 4 stars. I think I'll round it down to 3 stars. Don't get me wrong, I love this album, but any more than 3 stars would be too many.

The idea of capturing the cold and darkness - of a country that sees less light and more cold winters than others - is an appealing endeavour. Most Norwegian black metal bands have gone to hell and back to acquire this essence, but sometimes have fallen to the traps of politics and religion that are needlessly laid on the table, forsaking the only thing that is relevant in the first place: the music.

With his first album, Jari Mäenpää shows what Finnish Metal is capable of, and furthermore, he establishes an ultimatum to melodic extreme metal: this album is the border; if you want to create something as Nordic and beautiful at the same time, you will have to challenge the juggernaut, Wintersun.

If you are not into extreme metal, and the growls and screams that go with it, I still urge you to listen to the track Death and The Healing, as not only is it sung with a clean melodic voice, it also captures the Finnish winter: white, stark and beautiful.

5/5

I have spun this album many times over the past month. As well as being exciting and (with the exception of "Land of Snow and Sorrow") fast paced, the album is colourful and atmospheric. The band seems to have a little more direction than in the last album and their sound brings colour into the metal scene.

"When Time Fades Away" is a very nice instrumental introduction, though at times a little lengthy feeling. "Sons of Winter and Stars" is a truly magnificent piece of music. Musical, exciting and just brilliantly performed. Some of the greatest metal screams I have ever heard are in this track. "Land of Snow and Sorrow" I can't help but feel is inferior to the previous track, and it seems to drag. "Darkness and Frost" and "Time" are also incredible tracks, continuing the excitement of "Sons of Winter and Stars" with a more sorrowful feel.

What I feel lets this album down a little is the fact that it revolves too heavily around the synthesised orchestra. While I do like the sound of the orchestral parts and think they fit the band well, I think that they should have held them back a little and bought out the guitar parts a bit more. But as I have said before, the band have found a unique sound and they have many years to develop it.

"Time I" is a strong album and and excellent addition to a progressive music collection. I feel that this album will always be recognised as a classic.

4 stars.

Peace!

If you were going to take some musical reference points then start with Devin Townsend, throw in Nightwish and Opeth and then mix it all up and start to layer it. Then add some more layers, and then some more. It's just as well that the production is as good as it is as otherwise this could easily come across as a bucket of mud, the number of tracks being used is incredible. The person mixing this must have been an octopus in a previous life, even with Pro Tools. This over the top use of instrumentation is one of the delights of the album, but also one of the downfalls. At times it is possible to get somewhat overwhelmed by all of the aural delights being thrown, almost as if the piece of chocolate cake is too much as it is so rich. That is somewhat mitigated by the length of the CD which is much more like an old vinyl album at 40 minutes long.

There are lots of musical ideas being used, as the music moves from full-on over the top bombastic symphonic to plain and simple oriental ideas then we get loads of death metal elements thrown in for good measure. I enjoy it while I am playing it, but always find that when the album finishes and the next one starts that it is like a breath of fresh idea. Overall a good album, but best sampled in small doses. www.nuclearblast.de

Sometimes, good things need some time to be done but this is not the case at all for Wintersun's new output that has been released eight years after their first strike following many complicated recording sessions, lots of strange announcements and wrongful promises and more and impatiently growing expectations from critics and fans. The difference between Guns 'n Roses' "Chinese Democracy" and the new Wintersun record is that nobody really expected anything special coming from the one man project of Axl Rose but the record turned out to be quite decent without being a masterpiece while in the other case what has become a one man project of Jari Mäenpää was expected to be a masterpiece and is nothing but a big deception. After all the dramatic events over the last years, they could only fail. In the end, couldn't one have seen this coming?

"Only time will tell." realized the British Heavy Metal flagship Iron Maiden on its dark "A Matter Of Life And Death" release.

Jari Mäenpää announced in fact that his new material was so complex that it needed new and revolutionary recordings procedures. This complexion led to a quite predictable result as the new overhyped record turns out to be completely overloaded. The guitar riffs feel lackluster and are buried under a too big amount of symphonic elements. Despite the length of the single tracks, they show no progression whatsoever. The calmer moments lack of emotions, the louder parts lack of energy and the productions is without dynamics.

"We got a little time to make up our minds." stated the pioneer band of European Power Metal Helloween on the first part of their legendary "Keeper Of The Seven Keys" trilogy.

During the whole process of that difficult birth that Jari Mäenpää gave to his new baby, he seems to have either worked too much on the tracks as they feel very complicated and inaccessible or not worked enough on them as they lack of consistency. The whole record has no catchy moments even though the same patterns are heavily repeated. Apart of the instrumentals, all songs vary from calm ambient or folk rock introductions to extreme symphonic metal or melodic death metal parts to calmer folk metal sections before the entire circle is repeated again and again and soon starts to get quite predictable. The few new elements such as the Japanese folk parts are overused in the genre and don't fit at all to the topic of ice and snow. That being sad, the song titles lack as much of originality as the tracks themselves do.

"I've been here before, was it all just wasted time?" questioned the German power metal band Edguy on their "Rocket Ride" release.

In the end, there is nothing left to say but that this record collapses under its own pressure and feels directionless and overloaded. Maybe the sound would have been more mature and natural if the release would have taken less time. I can understand that the band finally wanted its material to be released but maybe they should have worked on something completely different and new as time went by. The plan to make two records out of one is a good commercial idea but artistically, it just stretches the whole chapter and people like me are not looking forward for the second part of this release at all. But maybe time will change things again and the band will actually revise its initial decision or work on their songs to make them sound more natural. As most of the reviews on here are surprisingly positive, they though surely don't feel the need to improve so that my expectations are very low for the upcoming release.

"Tears of time ? just an illusion." concluded the legendary German gothic metal band Crematory on their well entitled "Illusions" release.

Originally published on the Metal Archives on November, 26th of the year 2012

When the Time concept was still in its infancy, mastermind Jari Mäenpää said that this would be a very intricate album, and each song would contain around 200 tracks. Though this may sound far-fetched to the unsuspecting listener, this is an incredibly dense composition - vast orchestrations, multiple vocal melodies at once, huge keyboard tones, and pummeling guitar riffs characterize the music here, and it seems like every minute consists of dozens of musical ideas and melodic phrases blended into one coherent piece of music. The key word in that sentence is 'coherent' - although lots of things are always going on and most of the riffs are very death metal oriented, melody is the first priority here. Epic choruses and bombastic keyboards may not appeal too much to death metal purists, but more open minded listeners are likely to be amazed with the vast array of sounds that Wintersun has conjured. Almost as if a symphonic power metal band decided to up their testosterone level, Time I takes everything that's great about epic metal and makes it more heavy, progressive, and complex than anything I've ever heard before.

Beginning with the Tolkienesque intro "When Time Fades Away", Wintersun shows us right off the bat that this will be an epic journey; the intricate arrangement, touches of Eastern influence, and climatic final segment make this one of the best instrumental intro tracks I've ever heard on a metal album. It segues right into the thirteen minute behemoth "Sons of Winter and Stars", and this track immediately sets the stage for the rest of the album with its heavy riffs, multi-layered keyboard arrangements, and massive choruses. "Land of Snow and Sorrow" doesn't feature as many harsh vocals as the previous track, and it's also generally more mid-paced, but it retains the stunning keyboard work and strong melodies that made the earlier portions of the album so great. The main chorus has a Viking-influenced feel that showcases Wintersun's strong connection to Scandinavian folk music. "Darkness and Frost" is a short interlude piece that serves more as an intro to "Time" - it contains many of the same musical ideas as the following track, and also segues seamlessly into its successor. "Time" is the epic closer to part one of this saga, and features some absolutely killer riffs and some of the most technically challenging acrobatics heard on the entire observation. The album closes on a more atmospheric note, but that is certainly appreciated when one considers how bombastic the rest of the album is.

Time I is a short album by today's standards, clocking in at only forty minutes, but that is easily forgivable considering the depth and quality of the material offered. This is an example of 'all killer, no filler', and I would take that over a boring eighty minute album any day of the week. Wintersun is a group of musicians that have absolutely mastered their craft as artists, and the stunning vision of extreme symphonic metal shown on Time I exemplifies a band that has a burning desire to push music into uncharted territory - a professional, ambitious, and masterfully written observation, the first album in the Time saga stands tall as one of the year's best metal albums. Wintersun is back, and they have returned stronger than ever!

I've never heard this band before, but I remembered Ensiferum's cover of 'Lady in Black', so I nearly understood what I have to expect here, though I'm not very familiar with that kind of death metal music, preferring heavier sounds of certain bands such as Opeth, Leprous and Edge of Sanity.

The music here is a crossover between symphonic metal, folk metal and melodic death metal. With mix of rough and clean vocals with heavy guitars, folk melodies and symphonic sounds, it seemed to be a pretty original thing to listen to, so I managed to get this album without any hesitations. But after a few listens I feel that it's very uneasy to judge the music here (especially after such a raptured reviews from other reviewers).

The album opens with beautiful slow instrumental 'When Time Fades Away' (at one moment I wish'd if the whole album could be the same as this introductionary track).

Then it rolls into first metal track here: 'Sons of Winter and Stars'. Consisting of few parts combined together, it is a kind of prog epic. It starts with further developing of symphonic intro theme, but then heavy guitars and screaming vocals starts to blowing the fuse. Some nice melodies here.

'Land of Snow and Sorrow' musically is a highlight here. Excellent melodies. After it, we're off into a short instrumental break 'Darkness and Frost', which is nowhere as good as opening track.

The final track (not counting untitled hidden bonus track) here is called 'Time', which is another 10+ minutes long epic here. Same formula as 'Sons of Winter and Stars', it provides some more nice melodies full of pathos. Some interesting pianos closer to the end.

After all, in genreral, I can say it's not a bad album, and it's gonna be excellent work in terms of metal music, and metal kids should be bonkers about it. But I don't feel this work as any kind of essential, esspecially in terms of progressive music. It's just a good album with some beautiful moments, but it's not a milestone work.

Thus, I would rate it with 7 stars out of 10.

Wintersun has certainly crafted some fantastic components, don't get me wrong. The symphonic elements are truly amazing and fantastic (I can't stress that enough), and I am truly moved by the philosophical concept that they present: an exploration of human emotion in the context of mortality and the immensity of the universe. These two elements have really floored me, and I can certainly see why many reviewers have praised this album.

Yet, there is so much that is wrong with this album. In fact, I can narrow it down to three basic problems: the vox, the production, and the originality factor. First of all, the vocals are average at best. Throughout the album, I can't shake the feeling that I'm being yelled at, even though the vox never come off as being particularly powerful or forceful. I think the singer stayed at the top of his range the entire album, and melody and emotion are completely absent in his delivery. Also, the harsh vocals come off as pathetic. They aren't well done, and I really can't stand the rasp. Secondly, the production is terrible. This album took eight years to make, and it is claimed that new recording techniques were necessary to capture the awe-inspiring audio. I don't find this to be the case. The rhythm guitars are barely heard and become nothing more than distracting white noise. The fantastic symphonic elements come with a price as well: It is difficult to hear the lyrics most of the time and the drums fade into the background amid the chaos. I'm not sure what innovative techniques were utilized here, but they didn't work. Lastly, what good is all this technicality and innovation if there is nothing but standard metal here? The same riffs and ideas are played over and over for this short 40 minute album, and it even gets to the point where I can't call it progressive anymore for the shear lack of, well, progression. A hundred beats per minute don't get you anywhere if we've heard it all before and we've heard it composed and executed better.

Overall, I like this album: I really do. Yet, the hype machine blew this album out of proportion, and I can't hop on the train for this one. Wintersun crafted some mind-blowing symphonic elements and the concept of the album is truly moving to the core. Yet, the execution is severely flawed and the composition is lacking. What should have been the definitive metal album of 2012, or even the decade, has proven itself to be nothing more than a typical, solid metal release without any new musical ideas of its own to show. That's it.