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Review Summary: Wintersun experiments with their style, creating some sadly questionable results. Wintersun is objectively one of the best albums in metal as a whole. It was a product of Jari Maenpaa, formerly in Ensiferum and while the two outfits definitely shared similarities, namely the raw energy behind the music, Wintersun was far more energetic and had a symphonic feel. Eight years, and much difficulty in production after, Time I has been released, and while it definitely sounds like Wintersun, it has accentuated parts of Wintersun's sound that, in my humble opinion, were better left unchanged.
To begin with, the album is far closer to power metal rather than melodic death metal. Wintersun had influence in their debut, but it was far less prevalent than here. While this of itself really isn't a problem, the real issue with the change is that the music is far less energetic. It's immediately prevalent when we're introduced to a 4 minute intro that sounds almost oriental in fashion. While that's nice, it overstays its welcome (I will get to that in a minute), Whereas the debut immediately put us into the speed and raw energy with "Beyond The Dark Sun". Even after the intro, "Sons of Winter and Stars" is far less energetic in comparison to something like "Starchild" or "Winter Madness". The symphonic elements are extremely present, and sadly they feel forced as they never really feel right with the riffs and drumming. Thankfully, the higher amount of clean vocals are a welcome change, but that is subject to opinion because Jari does have great harsh vocals as well.
As I mentioned before, most of the music overstays its welcome. The introduction is far too long for its own good, and the 13 minute epic "Sons of Winter and Stars" far overstays its welcome, and even though the tempo changes and newer styles keep it interesting for a first run through, with each play through it becomes more and more monotonous and dull. "Land of Snow and Sorrow" is shorter and fares better, but the vocals are far overdone here and it does nothing to remedy the constant drag in the album. In some ways it sounds like Sonata Arctica or similar, especially with most of the Melodeath influence being fizzled out, and because of that not being handled very well, it feels very empty and vapid. The penultimate song "Darkness and Frost" is where the album shines the most, only because of its length being far shorter - around two and a half minutes - and it takes the best out of the melancholy parts of the album that were better left out of the earlier songs in the album.
While the members of the group show some very obvious skill in some places, they never really bother to do anything outside of their comfort zone or different. The drumming is mostly basic with some nice fills, and the riffing mainly consists of chugging, and the bass generally follows the guitars. The best member out of the group is without a doubt Jari Maenpaa the vocalist. He shows great pipes for both cleans and harsh vocals, although the cleans can sometimes feel overproduced.
No matter how underwhelming the rest of the record may be, the closing track "Time" is a candidate for the best song Wintersun has made. While it doesn't have the styling of the last album I was hoping for, all of the new influence is used the best here. The symphonic elements make the atmosphere fantastic, the vocals are fantastic, the riffing is more technical, and the lyrics are fantastic. The track definitely ends the album on a high note.
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I've had this review written for a long time. I changed it some, of course, but it's mostly the same.
Tried to cut out the ranting from the last review, and tried to focus on music more than anything else.
Hopefully it turned out better. Criticism welcome.
| | | Album Rating: 2.0 | Sound Off
Wintersun is objectively one of the best albums in metal as a whole.
this should be fun
| | | Album Rating: 2.5
I'll pos because you actually took advice from that avenged sevenfold review and improved. It was a pretty nice read I thought.
Just take that bit he said out. ^
| | | Album Rating: 2.5
Plus I agree that the album sucks. That user rating is like a point higher than it should be
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"Plus I agree that the album sucks. That user rating is like a point higher than it should be"
I just love the title track and enjoy the vocals, it doesn't quite drag it down to a 2 for me.
"this should be fun"
I take it you read the first sentence and neged?
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-double post-
| | | Album Rating: 2.5
Don't assume. I was the first to rate and his comment was here before I even read it. It was probably someone who either saw the rating or reviewer and negged.
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had to neg dude, sorry. There's just so many obvious little problems that you didn't take the time to fix. If you had gone through and fixed 'em this review could've actually turned out pretty good but the fact you couldn't be bothered is irritating. If you can't care about your own writing then who else will? If you genuinely want to improve this review then I will list some of the more obvious issues for you if you'd like. I think you have potential to be a good reviewer, you just need to put more effort in.
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He doesn't care about his writing, scuro, remember?
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"He doesn't care about his writing, scuro, remember?"
eh, he cared enough to write the review in the first place, he clearly didn't proofread it though I mean:
"The symphonic elements make the atmosphere fantastic, the vocals are fantastic, the riffing is more technical, and the lyrics are fantastic."
fantastic has synonyms man.
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the fact that you claim to be unable to write a positive review says wonders about your personality
| | | Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off
you claim a lot of things are different but you don't go into detail as to why it's better or worse
you mention how the s/t throws you straight in and that this album doesn't and just don't go into detail as to why the approach here is worse
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@sucro
I cut out the bullshit, stopped swearing, and focused on the music rather than ranting. I had plenty of people outside of sputnik tell me it was better written than HttK.
"the fact that you claim to be unable to write a positive review says wonders about your personality"
I can't write a review for an album I like. Why? I end up being far too generous and if it's a particularly good album I don't want to go on for 3-5 paragraphs about how good it is. Also, I don't know how you don't think I'm an asshole to begin with, which may contribute to that.
"you claim a lot of things are different but you don't go into detail as to why it's better or worse
you mention how the s/t throws you straight in and that this album doesn't and just don't go into detail as to why the approach here is worse"
I'll work on that, thanks for the advice.
| | | Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off
sure, but allow me to delve deeper into detail:
and while it definitely sounds like Wintersun, it has accentuated parts of Wintersun's sound that, in my humble opinion, were better left unchanged.
i don't think 'accentuated' is the word you're looking for here, at least, in context with your use of 'unchanged'
While that's nice, it overstays its welcome (I will get to that in a minute), Whereas the debut immediately put us into the speed and raw energy with "Beyond The Dark Sun".
uncapitalize "Whereas"
The symphonic elements are extremely present, and sadly they feel forced as they never really feel right with the riffs and drumming.
try "extremely prevalent" or a different couple of words altogether
also you need to go into much further detail in this point as it seems to be the crux of your criticism yet it only gets one sentence
"Sons of Winter and Stars" is far less energetic in comparison to something like "Starchild" or "Winter Madness"
it has blastbeats pretty much literally the whole way through so i don't know what this is about
While the members of the group show some very obvious skill in some places, they never really bother to do anything outside of their comfort zone or different. The drumming is mostly basic with some nice fills, and the riffing mainly consists of chugging, and the bass generally follows the guitars. The best member out of the group is without a doubt Jari Maenpaa the vocalist. He shows great pipes for both cleans and harsh vocals, although the cleans can sometimes feel overproduced.
they don't really do anything out of the ordinary in the s/t either, the most remarkable part of this album is the orchestration which is a huge step up in complexity and you barely give it a mention which i find a bit bewildering
No matter how underwhelming the rest of the record may be, the closing track "Time" is a candidate for the best song Wintersun has made.
why?
i'm just having difficulty figuring out where you're coming from here which is the main problem with your review. you describe a lot of things, yeah, but none of them seem to point towards what you're trying to say as to why this album works where the s/t does. you claim it isn't as energetic but that doesn't really hold water. you claim that they stuck to a comfort zone when you barely even mention the biggest change this album took.
irrespective of your opinion it just sounds like you're trying to justify not liking the album by nitpicking as opposed to actually describing why you don't like it.
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I see where you're coming from. The original review was 5 pages in microsoft word, and I'm not going to post a novel. I probably sacrificed most of the detail in the process.
"they don't really do anything out of the ordinary in the s/t either, the most remarkable part of this album is the orchestration which is a huge step up in complexity and you barely give it a mention which i find a bit bewildering"
Except for the orchestration and tempo, it's the same song and dance from their s/t and nothing really 'improved'.
"it has blastbeats pretty much literally the whole way through so i don't know what this is about"
I was mainly pointing out the fact that it's slower and has more orchestral breaks. Starchild makes me want to punch a train into the sun or something, Sons of... just isn't as energetic to me.
| | | Album Rating: 1.5
"Wintersun is objectively one of the best albums in metal as a whole."
neg
| | | Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off
Except for the orchestration and tempo, it's the same song and dance from their s/t and nothing really 'improved'.
vocals have improved hugely in both prowess and diversity, production is better, songwriting is tighter. you say "except for the orchestration" just to conveniently take out one of the most ambitious and impressive aspects of this record to make your argument seem like it has weight when it doesn't. if you don't like the orchestra, totally fine - explain why. that's the point of a review.
I was mainly pointing out the fact that it's slower and has more orchestral breaks.
uhh, yeah, one... well, if you discount one short 10 second break towards the beginning of the song.
| | | Album Rating: 1.5
Whoa...4.5?!?!
| | | Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off
i love this record heh [:
| | | Album Rating: 1.5
I've been thinking of bringing this to a 1.5.
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