Metal Reviews

I still need to listen to this. What I've heard so far sounds HUGE but whether that's what I truly want from a Wintersun album remains to be seen.

Time the titletrack was kind of choppy lots of watered down melodic death riffs that reminded me of Deathcult Armageddon by Dimmu Borshit, and the vocals just scream Ensiferum to me. Its not bad but the keyboards are actually more interesting than the riffs, go around 10:00 and that closing outro is just beautiful. I'm really enjoying the instrumentals though especially When time fades away it reminds me of some of the ambient tracks from specials on Asia on the Discovery channel, I'm really digging the Eastern influence at least. The riffing and clean vocals are weak though, around 7:30 of "Son of winter stars' I'm just waiting for the guy to shut up. Overall, I'd have to say you fans waited 8 years for what should've taken maybe 1 year given the simplicity of the riffs, the instrumentals though save the album from being anything more than a generic melodic death metal album.

Its a shame the band waited this long to release such passable material, and this is far from being anything on par of the first album. It could've been a lot worse though

"And the thing Wintersun's debut album is a tough act to follow, as it was and still stands as one of the best melodeath albums of all time"

Which is it, now? It still sounds like melodeath with a couple of frills to me.

Lols on finding the orchestration on par with Mozart and Wagner, by the way. That's probably the worst insult both of them ever received from a metal reviewer.

that can TRULY rival with Hans Zimmer and John Williams if you ask me.

You really hate Chris, huh?

fight

A good, but not outstanding, album. I'd rate it around an 85 or so.

Chris, the "wall of text" effect can be countered by just cutting the review into more paragraphs. Just take some of the longer paragraphs and cut them into three or four pieces, and I think the review will be a lot easier to read.

Don't think it's hate, I find that comparison a bit insulting too. About the album, I think a score around 80 is more than fair.

Yeah i agree too. I wouldn't say insulting but certainly a bit out of place. Mozart didn't have powerful computers nor modern technology at his disposal to work with in the first place which , like it or not , make things much easier these days. Not saying that Jari isn't a great composer because of this because he certainly is but a Mozart , Beethoven or Wagner he is not. That's going overboard with the comparaison.

Someone mentionned Hans Zimmer and John Williams which is much more fair imho.

He's not that stellar of a guitarist people, he's good but if you want mind boggling neo classical Windham Hell makes him look like a student.

Windham Hell!!!!!!!!!!!!! They/He were about 15 different shades of fantastic.

Yeah. You're probably right. Mozart couldn't touch Jari even if he had computers.

computers just delude shitty musicians into thinking that synthesized crap can replace the real thing

not sure how that makes things easier

I got this from the label almost a week ago and I keep foretting to listen to it.

Dont know how you can call this an "album" when there's only 5 songs on it. I've seen EP's with more songs.

And could you please fix that wall of text on that review, it really makes it difficult to read and even turns people away from reading. Turn that wall into paragraphs, they are a handy thing you know.

Mozart couldn't touch Jari ???

LOL you guys are delusional

Flying Knee, your sarcasm detector is obviously a little out of tune over there.

Ahhhhh maybe

Im asleep at the wheel this morning so that doesn't really help

No no no you're right I wasn't being sarcastic. Jari is super!

OK that was going maybe too far, but to tell you the truth I am pretty sure that if Mozart or Wagner were resurrected, they would include metal in their sound (they just didn't have these instruments back then) as nothing is more powerful than the trio drums/bass & electric guitar (it's kind of the percussions, brass and strings back then), it's kind of an evolution in sound but it is still derived from Classical music. I did not intend to insult either Mozart or Wagner, just make a parallel. Sure I should have used Zimmer and Williams instead. Still, I don't think Zimmer (no offense he is MY ALL-TIME favorite soundtrack composer) could write Sons of Winters and Stars (I don't talk about just the instrumental parts of the music, but the song as A WHOLE). Having seen it played live yesterday in Fribourg was simply mind blowing !

So there, I think Jari is a modern musical genius and maybe I was clumsy about my referencing in the review, nonetheless I stand by my opinion, it's mine and mine alone, you are totally free to disagree with me (after all isn't it why these forums exist ?), but my opinion stands.

If we revived Wagner today and he listened to Sons of Winter and Stars I'm willing to bet he would just love it, but that's just me.

We all have the right to like or dislike something, Jari's music inspires me (I feel like drawing when I listen to Wintersun and it generate visual flashes of battles and epic scenes in my brain), fills me with all kind of emotions and makes me tingle, is it a fraking crime to be touched by it ? Just wondering...

Did some light editing, hope it's a tiny bit better.