Album Rating: 4.0 | Sound Off

eh they get paid vaykay it all works out

Album Rating: 3.0

Hawks and Smok being on the same page with this is wild lol

Album Rating: 3.8

M///////EN

Album Rating: 4.0 | Sound Off

nt rly its only dm we have much conflict

Album Rating: 5.0

Well what can I say? Been waiting for this since probably 2006. Yes, the production is abysmal, he simply should have left it at Time I sound. And yes, the music is out of this world. No point in describing it, just wanna mention Storm as an absolutely insane macabre symphony of beauty and anguish.

And Silver Leaves? No words.

Album Rating: 2.0 | Sound Off

wish i could agree - i think he made a mistake with the forest seasons because he essentially put two extremely similar compositions to storm and silver leaves on there so it kinda spoiled the surprise and expectations of these ones. 'winter' is essentially a carbon copy of 'silver leaves' and if i were to choose between them i'd choose winter. it's just flat out a better song.



to add to my review i think i'm really not a fan of his maximalist writing style here. he basically throws on countless synth layers of what are essentially basic arpeggios of his riffs and it doesn't amount to anything. there's nothing interesting about his orchestral style, it's window dressing to something that is actually really basic and shallow. this is a shame because his melodic style with guitar is great - always has been



the nail in the coffin is if you get the stems of this and just remove the synth the songs practically sound the same and in some cases better for it. he makes no effort to integrate the synth in an interesting way and i think the shocking thing is that on time i he did a much better job at this - why is time ii weaker in this respect? don't get me wrong time i's' attempt at this is still not great but definitely better and overall the songs are just better constructed



then you compare to the s/t which had a few really cheap synths and realize how much it managed to achieve with that. that sound - to this day - has not been replicated and it is massive in scope. you cannot argue that this hyperfixation on songwriting maximalism from jari hasn't had massively diminishing returns and i just want him to refocus on his actual talents as a musician.

Album Rating: 3.8

I do like this one a lot. First one since the s/t that has been worth a damn imo.

Album Rating: 5.0

Well the problem with orchestrations here is very simple, they are compressed into oblivion. It's actually a miracle Time I was released with such a surprising DR which was exactly why it sounded so grandiose and precisely like a symphony. Check the live recs of The Way of the Fire, they are miles ahead in terms of atmosphere, drive and everything else to what is presented as the album version. I almost couldn't stand this song at first as a studio cut. So I don't think the synths got worse since they were pretty much composed at the same point, the mix and master have. That being said, the orchestrations in Storm are truly amazing I think, no one else does this layers upon layers thing this well.

There's was a piece of Fields of Snow included in The Forest Seasons CF video, can't find it now but it was called 'fields of snow rough mix', and I think that piece was a version before this hell of a compression happened, I remember it sounding really different than the flat Fields of Snow take on the LP.

I agree with Autumn / Storm and Winter / Silver Leaves duality but I don't think Silver Leaves is an inferior piece, it's just different mood.

Album Rating: 3.8

Time I is trash.

Album Rating: 2.0 | Sound Off

"Well the problem with orchestrations here is very simple, they are compressed into oblivion."



this isn't true. the problem isn't the compressed master (though it's not great), it's the mix and the compositional ideas in the synth making it practically impossible to mix. it's simply a case of maximalism and diminishing returns.



you make a reasonable point with the live recording of the way of the fire but keep in mind live you can have different channels playing different things but in a 2 channel mixdown it's a totally different beast and for something with this many synth ideas, and wanting them all to be heard, it's just an impossible task. a lot of bands simplify their studio recordings and flesh them out live due to increased flexibility with channels.



that and increased dynamic range of a bad mix is still a bad mix. i had hawks try out my increased dynamic range remaster so he can comment on that himself, but my core point remains the same - studio maximalism leads to massively diminishing returns and on some cases, this one included, ruins the project.

Album Rating: 4.0 | Sound Off

someone is equally obsessed as wrong

Album Rating: 2.0 | Sound Off

i'm happy being called obsessed, jari is a superb musician and his style was highly influential to me. i have a lot of emotional connection to his work and me being unhappy with this album doesn't change how influential he was. i learned how to play guitar by teaching myself summoning and jari-era ensiferum songs at the age of 12 so his style is definitely in my musical dna.



watching his journey taught me a lot about the pitfalls of being a musician and what to avoid and even if i think he made the wrong choices it doesn't take away from what he gave to me in terms of inspiration. despite my criticism i strongly respect the dude.



also the stems were extremely useful practice in teaching myself how to mix so it was a lot of fun and not wasted time.

Album Rating: 4.0 | Sound Off

eh its one band amongst thousands for me theres a lot of cringe on this to be sure but i like the overall effect even if the st style was obviously better than anything else



also nothing on this has made it into my collection so that says well enough on its long term quality

Album Rating: 5.0

I guess it's kinda both? He mixed Time I himself but outsorced the mastering and I think that was the right sound for this project. It got a lot of critical arrows for sound not metal and all but just listen to the drums, they are million lightyears ahead of drums on Time II. Of course you can't perfectly squeeze 1000+ tracks in a mix but the result was way better than it is now. That is especially heard on Time I 2.0 which is plain atocity. And both drums for I and II were recorded together.

Also, you can compare Time I 1.5 orchestrations stem to Time I 2.0 orchestration stem and hear vast difference between them.

Album Rating: 2.0 | Sound Off

yeah it's unfortunate he tried to produce it like a modern melodeath record