After first spin I have to say I'm impressed, it's much better than I expected tbh as part of me was thinking this was going to be overhyped, overproduced, and seriously over the top, but it's very well crafted and the time and effort has certainly pulled off, in fact I'd say I'm enjoying this more than Time I. The solo's and clean vocals are definitely the stand-out points for me so far.

Edit: Couple of spins in, and it's definitely one of the most epic releases I've heard this year!

Written by AndyMetalFreak on 30.08.2024 at 09:31

After first spin I have to say I'm impressed, it's much better than I expected tbh as part of me was thinking this was going to be overhyped, overproduced, and seriously over the top, but it's very well crafted and the time and effort has certainly pulled off, in fact I'd say I'm enjoying this more than Time I. The solo's and clean vocals are definitely the stand-out points for me so far.

Same here. It IS overproduced, it’s the definition of overproduction. But at the same time it’s so well written, you just don’t care. The bastard did it again.

And here we are. I woke up gave it a couple of spins already.

It is as I had already suspected VERY overproduced. The definition of overproduction. For some parts I had to use an equalizer to be able to listen to everything Jari has put in there.

At the same time, the craftsmanship is amazing. The album is very well written, Wintersun did it again. Lead guitar work and orchestration are out of this world.

The only downside for me: it lacks the catchy and memorable parts Time 1 has. It feels like a big pulp consisting of lots of well written riffs, without achieving the “wow let’s hear this again and again” part.

Written by 24emd on 30.08.2024 at 09:31

Written by Cynic Metalhead on 30.08.2024 at 09:00

some genuine fans dislike the direction this band have taken from past releases.

After multiple listens, rating a 9 is completely warranted if the listener feels that way.

One of our FAQ rules* specifically addresses the issue of spamming, particularly when it comes to giving high ratings without proper justification. I feel doling out 9s and 10s without pondering into its analysis often suggests that fanboys have flooded the forum, bringing pre-conceived opinions to the table projecting a dubious overall ratings for other genuine fans to think about Wintersun's new album. It generally happens with Wintersun army who have already made the gimmick out of the gimmicky band.

*

Quote:
Try to always give detailed opinions, with explanations and as much as information as needed.

Written by Cynic Metalhead on 30.08.2024 at 11:38

...

You seem to misunderstand me. I never rate without proper justification and critical thought, nor do I excuse rating any other way than this. Again, I am responding to your assumption that every single 9 and 10 are NOT critical, NOT justified and pure fanboyism. It's highly ignorant and a double standard. I am not saying it is a moot point, I am only saying this is a generalisation. I too even think the rating here is too high for an average, it will and should settle lower and later.

Quoting the rules does not make my point invalid.

After a couple more listens, it's 8.5+ for me. The 4 min of nothing at the end of Storm and Silver Leaves is a turn off. I prefer songs to play smoothly one after the other without breaks.

I also felt at times that Jari's voice lost some of its strength. I love the vocal variations on Loneliness in The Forest Seasons. Here his voice is either a little far in the mix, or that extra oomph is lost due to age probably. But the vocals are still really good.

The album is far far better than I expected. I always thought the delays were because Jari was out of ideas, but I've been proven wrong.

Time 1 was an 8 for me. This trumps it because of the guitar solos mainly.

Written by 24emd on 30.08.2024 at 11:48

Written by Cynic Metalhead on 30.08.2024 at 11:38

...

.Again, I am responding to your assumption that every single 9 and 10 are NOT critical, NOT justified and pure fanboyism. It's highly ignorant and a double standard. I am not saying it is a moot point, I am only saying this is a generalisation.

My point is addressing to lack of justification to the rating. I'm not going to specially quote anyone here, but if you look at the past shouts, you'll notice that many high ratings are given without any substantial reasoning, and many of them will gonna edit own rating the way they are digesting the new album. That's the real issue here. Remember, this forum is visible outside the Metal Storm community.

Written by Cynic Metalhead on 30.08.2024 at 11:38

One of our FAQ rules* specifically addresses the issue of spamming, particularly when it comes to giving high ratings without proper justification. I feel doling out 9s and 10s without pondering into its analysis often suggests that fanboys have flooded the forum, bringing pre-conceived opinions to the table projecting a dubious overall ratings for other genuine fans to think about Wintersun's new album. It generally happens with Wintersun army who have already made the gimmick out of the gimmicky band.

*

Quote:
Try to always give detailed opinions, with explanations and as much as information as needed.

This rule you quote, Cynic, primarily relates to forum posting. Its intention is to prevent users from posting short shouts, such as "New Wintersun slays", in the forums.
If users are though not comfortable with commenting on this site at all, they are allowed to merely drop a rating without commenting, and be that a 9 or a 10 on a Wintersun album (as long as this is not considered voting abuse).

😁 I love being on Metal Storm. You guys make me laugh.

Written by Archie 666 on 30.08.2024 at 12:42

😁 I love being on Metal Storm. You guys make me laugh.

Being happy is the meaning of life, isn't it?

It’s hard to believe this actually came out and is actually good. Like okay Jari you’ve been annoying but I’ll shut the fuck up while I listen to this.

Still need more spins but it’s obvious what are the standouts here. The Way of the Fire and Storm are gauntlet songs for this genre. Just incredible stuff. I also have a particularly affinity for Ominous Clouds. It reminds me of the acoustic part in Holy Wars. Absolutely gorgeous stuff.

I find that One with the Shadows and Silver Leaves kill the pacing, but they’re still very good songs.

Easy 9 early on, and I doubt I will change it.

Overproduced of course, but I think the sound is better than Time I. You can clearly hear the guitars. Which is a good thing because these riffs and solos are amazing.

Clocking a point down because both "Storm" and "Silver Leaves" have an annoying 2 mins of just noise, something that I really despise.

Written by Redel on 30.08.2024 at 12:08

Written by Cynic Metalhead on 30.08.2024 at 11:38

and be that a 9 or a 10 on a Wintersun album (as long as this is not considered voting abuse).

That's generally you inflating a score for the particular album and I think it's voting abuse. I'm not suggesting that every score needs a comment here, but if someone is giving a high score and going for its comment here—whether for a Wintersun album or any other—they should provide a solid justification for that rating. To which I found lot less in the albums of like Wintersun.

Written by 24emd on 30.08.2024 at 11:48

You seem to misunderstand me. I never rate without proper justification and critical thought, nor do I excuse rating any other way than this. Again, I am responding to your assumption that every single 9 and 10 are NOT critical, NOT justified and pure fanboyism.

Come on 24, you know the rules of rating. The only valid 9s and 10s are mine, and everyone else is a fanboy.

Written by Cynic Metalhead on 30.08.2024 at 13:41

That's generally you inflating a score for the particular album and I think it's voting abuse. I'm not suggesting that every score needs a comment here, but if someone is giving a high score and going for its comment here—whether for a Wintersun album or any other—they should provide a solid justification for that rating. To which I found lot less in the albums of like Wintersun.

Sure, comments are preferable when you leave a rating. But with albums you may have in mind now, popular ones, many comments, many high rates, it is just highly probable that users at one point may think that all has already been said on the album and prefer to not add further comments, and that should be ok.

On a sheer technical level this album is brilliant. It sounds just like what you'd expect new Wintersun album to sound. On a more conceptual level it's pretty boring, to be honest. Like there's nothing that surprising or creative, no big statements or anything. It's just another Wintersun album, and that's okay.

There is no "It grows on you" to this album. It was a mesmerizing masterpiece from the very beginning.

I have never been a fan of this band. After listening to this album repeatedly, as a Chinese, I am still surprised that people on the other side of the earth can grasp the emotions of oriental music so well. Yes, this is an absolutely rare work that "the sequel is better than the previous one". In addition, the solo of this album is the key to success, and the overall performance combines the advantages of their first and second albums. (Although I still prefer their first album) I think the reason why their music has been criticized is that since the second album, the music has not been handled so properly. For metal music, they seem to be more focused on another creative direction, abandoning the original content of metal music to a certain extent. And this album, you have to admit that they have integrated all of this very well, and to a large extent avoided the annoying "melodic death metal formula".

Finally, I still think that the current evaluation of this album on this website is indeed ridiculously high. I think an average score of 8.6-8.7 is more reasonable.

Written by Redel on 30.08.2024 at 13:51

Written by Cynic Metalhead on 30.08.2024 at 13:41

But with albums you may have in mind now, popular ones, many comments, many high rates, it is just highly probable that users at one point may think that all has already been said on the album and prefer to not add further comments, and that should be ok.

Let me give you a stat here,

So far,

42 folks have already punched 10s

...............................

22 folks punched 9s
10 folks punched 8s
7 folks punched 7s

Can you see the difference?! Almost all 'em in 10s are doing vote abuse. It's time to purge.

Is it good? Yes, it's good.
Is it as good as Time I? Hell no.
Maybe nothing can meet expectations now, knowing it's been 10+ years in the making.
Sounds more like music made just for guitar players to me.
I give it a 7 out of 10.

Written by Cynic Metalhead on 30.08.2024 at 15:00

Almost all 'em in 10s are doing vote abuse. It's time to purge.

Vote abuse is an issue that we evaluate on a case by case basis, looking carefully into the overall rating distribution of the users, in fact their entire profile on the site. It is not just "dropping a 10 on release day is rate abuse".

Written by The Melting Snow on 30.08.2024 at 11:58


The album is far far better than I expected. I always thought the delays were because Jari was out of ideas, but I've been proven wrong.

The album was wrote over 15 years ago, he's only actually released four songs that have been written since he did Time so he still could be well out of ideas

I waited 12 years for Time II and all I got was weeb anime metal.

Wow, nearly a 100 votes and still above a 9 average. What age are we living in on MS?

As for the voting abuse discussion: I enjoy what I enjoy. Yes, leaving comments is a thing you can do, but I don't owe any internet strangers an explanation. If you're obviously going to give this a 10 and other albums on the charts a 1 then yes, that's voting abuse. but looking through a couple of the profiles that rated a 10, most of them seem legit.

Been waiting for this since 2006 announcement and it's the exact out-of-this-world masterpiece I've always been sure of. 10 is in fact a great underassessment because there literally is no other music like this.

Written by Ruisedeer on 30.08.2024 at 17:44

As for the voting abuse discussion: I enjoy what I enjoy. Yes, leaving comments is a thing you can do, but I don't owe any internet strangers an explanation. If you're obviously going to give this a 10 and other albums on the charts a 1 then yes, that's voting abuse. but looking through a couple of the profiles that rated a 10, most of them seem legit.

And this isn't like Queensrÿche writing and recording Operation Mindcrime II Iong past their prime, these are all songs from the same session as Time I, which many fans really liked.

There may indeed be some "voting abuse" there, but I'll only speak for myself now.

TIME I has become the most listened to album on my playlist since its release. Seriously, I consider it one of the greatest masterpieces in music in the last 20 years and one of my favorite albums. I had high expectations for TIME II and the main intrigue was whether the album would be worthy of its first part? I was 100% sure about the song the Way of the Fire, since I've listened to live bootlegs hundreds of times, I wasn't so sure about Storm, the rest of the songs were dark horses. Well, the album came out and all my fears (that the second part might be inferior to the first) were left behind. It's definitely a masterpiece. (At least for me personally). I've listened to the album more than ten times and I like it more and more. And the only complaint I have about TIME II is the balance of instruments. I don't like that Jari put more emphasis on metal and hid the magnificent symphonic arrangements in the background. I was completely satisfied with the mix, a la TIME I. However, does this make the songs worse? No! It's just harder for me to hear all the symphonic beauty. But the songs nevertheless deserve the maximum score.

Mods getting they work in today.

Written by Boxcar Willy on 30.08.2024 at 16:38

I waited 12 years for Time II

It's exactly this premature ejaculation that fans lose it on a day of the release that trebucheting 10s here. Jari knew about the strategy that if you release new album after long span of time, fans will lap it up because we all know there's no substance in his material. Clearly, there's a clear vote abuse here.