Review Summary: A major transition for Moonsorrow.
Somewhere in between Moonsorrow’s bedroom black metal beginnings and their becoming a full-fledged Folk/Viking metal band was birthed the very underrated
Tämä Ikuinen Talvi demo. While not being as massive and compositionally dense as their subsequent, more Bathory-influenced releases, Moonsorrow makes up for it on
Tämä Ikuinen Talvi with more straightforward black metal aggression accompanied by shadowy keyboard melodies that when taken for what it is makes for a great and fairly unique listening experience.
Moonsorrow doesn’t seem at all hesitant to put their love for Enslaved on display on
Tämä Ikuinen Talvi. The beautiful keyboard introduction seems almost as if it was lifted directly from Enslaved’s
Frost and modified only slightly. Many of the riffs on the demo, especially in the epic “Vihreällä Valtaistuimella”, would seem right at home on one of Enslaved’s earlier albums, employing similar barre chord progressions, similar drumming style, and an almost identical use of percussive transitions. If the saying “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” is at all true, the members of Enslaved would be flattered indeed upon hearing
Tämä Ikuinen Talvi.
What separates
Tämä Ikuinen Talvi from Enslaved however is its extremely theatrical presentation. Enslaved’s early albums, while managing to be epic as fu
ck, still had a rather blunt and confrontational tone to them. Moonsorrow on the other hand takes on a much more dramatic and, dare I say, cheesy aesthetic on
Tämä Ikuinen Talvi; the whirling keyboard lines combined with the choirs, chanting, and spoken word parts give the demo a bombastic and epic yet undeniably dark feeling that is definitive of the direction they would later take on their full-length albums. Moonsorrow shows no shame whatsoever in their terribly cliché but at the same time impossible not to like use of keyboards, and though they would go on to refine this element of their sound on their subsequent albums, the keyboards serve their oh-so-cheesy purpose here very well.
Despite being a demo, the production on
Tämä Ikuinen Talvi is reasonably clear, sounding more like a somewhat shoddy studio recording than something done on an analog recorder. The only real complaint one can bring up about the production is that the volume of the drums in some parts is too low or unbalanced, leaving it sounding like one piece of the kit is triggered and another isn’t being hit at all – a common problem with low-budget black metal recordings. This isn’t likely to cause much grief on the part of the listener however; the demo is quite listenable compared to most black metal of similar stature, and that's saying alot.
On the whole,
Tämä Ikuinen Talvi shows Moonsorrow making huge growths on all musical fronts from their previous releases, and gives a good idea of what they have in store for their future releases. If you’re a fan of Moonsorrow’s later releases or folk/black metal in general and find yourself with little to do on a rainy day,
Tämä Ikuinen Talvi will do little to disappoint.
