Written by JakeTheSage on 23.10.2012 at 00:06

7.5? I call shenanigans. The album is an easy 10.

There's no such thing as an "easy 10". Perfection is not a common thing down here.

Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 23.10.2012 at 00:39

To those cryers... since when is a 7.5 offensive or parsimonious?
A 7.5 denotes something between good and very good.

Agreed. 7.5 is a high score. But in the light of his review in words, it does seem way too low, since the only flaws of importance that he points out are that the production is a bit thin, and that it isn't the full album. Perhaps a review should have waited until "II" is out to. I haven't listened yet though, but I have my hopes up with this review.

By the light of day, we've seen the ashes.
The beauty that... once... was.

Doesn't quite sound like my cup of tea but good review nonetheless. That is if my assumption that those crispy quick riffs from the debut have been taken down a notch is correct.

Metalstorm staff trying to sound all edgy® and progressive?;
Metalstorm users trying to hide fanboyism and innability to provide decent argument on both sides;

Yep another glorious thread on MS.

Thanks for all the comments about the review guys, I've had fun reading through them all.

I don't read people's opinions on albums before I review them, so I genuinely was expecting to get a bunch of negativity for this review. Nice to see some others agree though.

I didn't look at any reviews before listening to this on purpose

I thought the intro was amazing. The first song was fine, however, I soon got the feeling too much stuff was going on and it was NOT working the way I think the composer intended.
Some rhythms that didn't really make sense, the vocals sounded weird. The notes harmonize well but I thought that it was too complex, could not really understand what was going on as a listener (and I do like a lot of different sounds during a song but it's too much "digital" music used here). It doesn't sound real in a way. I also think that an amazing guitarist such as Jari should do more dominating guitar.

I've been waiting and checking up on this album every few months for half a decade, as 2004 Wintersun was a pretty awesome record this is not in my opinion. I listened a lot yesterday because I kept thinking "I must be missing something, this is probably epic", and maybe I am. However there is just too much great sounding music out there and I think I will let this one go for now.

Would give exact same score as in OP

Cheers. Will give Time 2 a listen as well though

Written by [user id=109246] on 22.10.2012 at 19:18

7.5 is way too low... I am sure if Ensiferum, Brymir, Equilibrium or any other band had released this, they would have been rated much higher.

7.5-8 is probably the most accurate i think most will agree on. It's a good album, and things work, but other things don't work which limit it''s praise.

Written by [user id=20536] on 22.10.2012 at 18:22

Your review is spot on Baz, though I enjoyed Land of Snow and Sorrow a lot too. [...]

Musically though, the melodies have been stuck in my head since I started listening to it. Having already heard The Way of the Fire, together Time I and II should be a pretty epic listen. Overall Time I feels like three tracks to me because the intro and interlude flow into the tracks that follow so well.

^ ditto. It's easy not to screw up a lot when there's only 40 minutes, but I like this chunk of music even though my not-great-to-start-with interest in bombastic shizz has plummeted in the past year or so. I'd give it about a point higher than Baz really. I've already heard it around 10 times in the past few days and not once have I desired to change it. I think its complexity is overblown - it's simply just a little more layered than other releases in the genre, but it's not like the layers clash or are difficult to comprehend - it's a pretty easy, relaxing listen overall, except for the production being in the way sometimes. Jari has probably learned a lot from this experience so we can expect him to do a better job next time around.

Comments and commenters as silly as expected, but I'm frankly more concerned for those of you who went on to argue with them - don't take this as an insult! It's just that, I've spent the afternoon doing nothing and I consider even that time better spent than arguing with people who don't know the meanings of words such as "subjectivity" and whatever else we have here - haven't dived deep enough into it. You're only young once, who cares about arguing with fanboys of the band you supposedly don't care for?

tl;dr I like the album a lot, I like Barry's review, I dislike this thread.

Written by Uldreth on 23.10.2012 at 00:11

Lol.

I cannot decide what do I consider more ridiculous, that Baz gets this shitstorm for a GODDAMN FUCKING POSITIVE ALBUM RATING (this is seriously fucking hilarious), or that people still believe metalstorm has some crusade against melodic metal, when 90% of the userbase is heavily biased TOWARDS melodic accessible stuff as it is witnessed by the likes of Wintersun or Nightwish getting shitloads of attention compared to more extreme and far less accessible acts.

Good review anyways, it kind of assessed what I like or dislike about the album, except it overplayed the "complexity" thing a little, which I don't really agree with, and as such I'd rate it a tad lower.

This again? Lol - seriously? What shitstorm? Where is the shitstorm? The vast majority of people commenting seem to agree with Baz. And several of the people who rated it higher still congratulated him on a good review. Are you seeing things?

Written by [user id=4365] on 23.10.2012 at 00:30

Thank God for this review of a mediocre album: it's great to see every moron on Metalstorm congregate in one place and have a big old cry that it didn't get 10.

Aaaa, another MSer who will only listen to your band if you are a group of guys living in a basement who nobody has ever heard of. Check out this first line of favorite bands:
Blut Aus Nord, Skullflower, !T.O.O.H.!, The Meads Of Asphodel, Lurker Of Chalice, Murmuüre, Negative Plane, The Ruins Of Beverast, Beherit
I could go to a metal festival and probably no one would have ever even heard of one of these bands... if they had, they'd probably think they sucked. Your musical tastes must just be way too developed for mere earthlings like me to comprehend... in fact, there's probably only a select dozen of you on earth with such developed tastes.

And before you call me a fanboy, I'd probably only rate this album around a 7 (but that's only after one listen).
I'm not a huge Wintersun fan by any stretch of the imagnation... but when I see people calling this "generic" and comparing it to bands like Nightwish and Equilibrium, I lose a little faith in the metal community... until I remember that the opinions of the few people on MS are an awful representation of the actual metal community.

Exhibit A ladies and gentleman ^

You should go get a cushion for that butthurt you're nursing. Have a sit down and realise that with every sentence you write, every irrelevant anecdote you make and every personal attack you swing with wildly draws attention to you more than anything you're talking about. Thanks for that paragraph about my great tastes though.

Written by [user id=4365] on 23.10.2012 at 03:51

Exhibit A ladies and gentleman ^

You should go get a cushion for that butthurt you're nursing. Have a sit down and realise that with every sentence you write, every irrelevant anecdote you make and every personal attack you swing with wildly draws attention to you more than anything you're talking about. Thanks for that paragraph about my great tastes though.

1) Butthurt about what? This album, upon first listen, is a bit of a letdown IMO. I agree with the review 99%.

2) What personal attacks? I didn't even mention your hair once. Until now.

Go listen to your sweet music, bro. Some day the rest of humanity will come around to understanding that the directionless noise you listen to and call "great metal" is actually a plethora of masterpieces disguised as fart noises.

Written by Italics on 23.10.2012 at 03:55


1) Butthurt about what? This album, upon first listen, is a bit of a letdown IMO. I agree with the review 99%.

2) What personal attacks? I didn't even mention your hair once. Until now.

Go listen to your sweet music, bro. Some day the rest of humanity will come around to understanding that the directionless noise you listen to and call "great metal" is actually a plethora of masterpieces disguised as fart noises.

So much angst... you seem to have a major grudge toward people with tastes a little less popular than the kind of easy-listening metal you listen to. I can only attribute that to an inferiority complex. Your best "argument" so far seems to be periodically pointing out people lacking in "factual" statements and arguments and how you've served out "facts" of your own (when you haven't once in the whole discussion, rather you've handed out stab-in-the-dark guesses under the guise of "fact" as I will demonstrate shortly) but the crux and meat of your comments toward me have been philistine suppositions about my tastes and how they're somehow preconstructed based on the number of listeners. From the horse's mouth:

Quote:
You make a false statement

You follow up with a completely inaccurate accusation

A statement now rendered into accidental hypocrisy derived from a natural lack of ability to make a cogent argument.



You then went on to build an ad-hom about how the general metal populace would think those bands, and in turn, my tastes, "sucked." This constitutes a personal attack as it has no basis in fact (that paradigm you like so much) or any relation to the topic at hand. You also showcased some bands that I like in an effort to ridicule me. Please, enlighten me as to how this is part and parcel of your fact-finding methodology? It was a fallacy to think you could use that in a discussion such as this. Egregious much? As I said, your comments reveal more about your own shortcomings than anything else. You should learn to focus your thoughts, and use good judgement on what not to write, for example crass generalisations about music you don't understand and so forth.

More horribly inaccurate presumption being passed off as "fact" by you:

Quote:
No, those festivals don't draw huge crowds. That statement is non-factual.

And no, those scenes are not "very much" alive. They are alive enough to have a couple hundred facebook fans who probably never listen to their albums, and maybe even alive enough to draw out a small crowd in some small and dull town in scandinavia

So by your "facts" no festival of the "fart noises" I would listen to would draw a crowd larger than a "few hundred?" Let's see, Supersonic Festival in the UK is predominantly a noise festival, a genre infinitely less popular than metal, yet draws 2500 people? Roadburn festival, surely one of the most elite and prententious festivals that host to the kind of music I would like has a main area capacity of 3000. Quite clearly lacking knowledge in specific areas, hence my comment of "swinging wildy." As they say: get your facts straight. Of course capacity and popularity is totally irrelevant anyway. If you're going to go down that path then by your own definitions pop music is the best kind of music as popular festivals of pop, indie and the like draw enormous crowds. a statement I can qualify by a statement of yours:

Quote:
there's a reason nobody likes what he likes. It's not good music. If it was, it'd be more popular.

In a nut shell: the more popular the music the better it is. More poor reasoning on your part, I think we can all agree on that being the case.



And yeah, I really have no idea what you're butthurt about but you're exhibiting classics signs of that particular internet staple which tends to feast on the weak minded whose opinion just *needs* be acknowledged, typically culminating and exemplified by the said party claiming (falsely) victory over the other, which just serves to highlight the true reason why they're arguing in the first place:

Quote:
At least you know when to give up because you are beat. That's a precious gift.

So, what did you want to say about my hair? I'm sure it's extremely pertinent to the discussion at hand.

So, this is the way symphonic metal works? Write the most boring, basic guitar riffs you can, then drown it under 200 layers of synths and it becomes "complex"?

Good review, but I don't agree with it. This album sounds like Jari spent most of those 8 years figuring out how to dump more sugar and frosting into the mix, and it ended up turning into an easy listening ball of fluff.

Written by [user id=4365] on 23.10.2012 at 04:03
So much angst... you seem to have a major grudge toward people with tastes a little less popular than the kind of easy-listening metal you listen to.

I think the problem is that mainstream/pop-metal fans are so used to having the majority opinion that they never learned to handle criticism about something they like.

Written by Hammer Pie on 23.10.2012 at 04:57

I think the problem is that mainstream/pop-metal fans are so used to having the majority opinion that they never learned to handle criticism about something they like.

They need to get to grips with the fact that because the music they listen to is popular it draws large amounts of people toward it, both fans AND detractors. Inevitably the focus will be on those that say "this should be a 10 and nothing less" and those that say it's less than good.

Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 23.10.2012 at 00:39

To those cryers... since when is a 7.5 offensive or parsimonious?
A 7.5 denotes something between good and very good.

Well said. I have yet to get my own copy, but i doubt whats in store was worth an 8 year wait. Is it seriously a 40 minute album? That alone is disappointing

Written by Hammer Pie on 23.10.2012 at 04:35

So, this is the way symphonic metal works? Write the most boring, basic guitar riffs you can, then drown it under 200 layers of synths and it becomes "complex"?

While this album has symphonic elements it is not simply symphonic metal. So i wouldnt make generalizations about the genre based off of this album.

And it is impossible to deny that this album is complex. Although, whether the complexity is a good thing or bad is up for debate.

Written by [user id=4365] on 23.10.2012 at 04:03

Written by Italics on 23.10.2012 at 03:55


1) Butthurt about what? This album, upon first listen, is a bit of a letdown IMO. I agree with the review 99%.

2) What personal attacks? I didn't even mention your hair once. Until now.

Go listen to your sweet music, bro. Some day the rest of humanity will come around to understanding that the directionless noise you listen to and call "great metal" is actually a plethora of masterpieces disguised as fart noises.

So much angst... you seem to have a major grudge toward people with tastes a little less popular than the kind of easy-listening metal you listen to. I can only attribute that to an inferiority complex. Your best "argument" so far seems to be periodically pointing out people lacking in "factual" statements and arguments and how you've served out "facts" of your own (when you haven't once in the whole discussion, rather you've handed out stab-in-the-dark guesses under the guise of "fact" as I will demonstrate shortly) but the crux and meat of your comments toward me have been philistine suppositions about my tastes and how they're somehow preconstructed based on the number of listeners. From the horse's mouth:

Quote:
You make a false statement

You follow up with a completely inaccurate accusation

A statement now rendered into accidental hypocrisy derived from a natural lack of ability to make a cogent argument.



You then went on to build an ad-hom about how the general metal populace would think those bands, and in turn, my tastes, "sucked." This constitutes a personal attack as it has no basis in fact (that paradigm you like so much) or any relation to the topic at hand. You also showcased some bands that I like in an effort to ridicule me. Please, enlighten me as to how this is part and parcel of your fact-finding methodology? It was a fallacy to think you could use that in a discussion such as this. Egregious much? As I said, your comments reveal more about your own shortcomings than anything else. You should learn to focus your thoughts, and use good judgement on what not to write, for example crass generalisations about music you don't understand and so forth.

More horribly inaccurate presumption being passed off as "fact" by you:

Quote:
No, those festivals don't draw huge crowds. That statement is non-factual.

And no, those scenes are not "very much" alive. They are alive enough to have a couple hundred facebook fans who probably never listen to their albums, and maybe even alive enough to draw out a small crowd in some small and dull town in scandinavia

So by your "facts" no festival of the "fart noises" I would listen to would draw a crowd larger than a "few hundred?" Let's see, Supersonic Festival in the UK is predominantly a noise festival, a genre infinitely less popular than metal, yet draws 2500 people? Roadburn festival, surely one of the most elite and prententious festivals that host to the kind of music I would like has a main area capacity of 3000. Quite clearly lacking knowledge in specific areas, hence my comment of "swinging wildy." As they say: get your facts straight. Of course capacity and popularity is totally irrelevant anyway. If you're going to go down that path then by your own definitions pop music is the best kind of music as popular festivals of pop, indie and the like draw enormous crowds. a statement I can qualify by a statement of yours:

Quote:
there's a reason nobody likes what he likes. It's not good music. If it was, it'd be more popular.

In a nut shell: the more popular the music the better it is. More poor reasoning on your part, I think we can all agree on that being the case.



And yeah, I really have no idea what you're butthurt about but you're exhibiting classics signs of that particular internet staple which tends to feast on the weak minded whose opinion just *needs* be acknowledged, typically culminating and exemplified by the said party claiming (falsely) victory over the other, which just serves to highlight the true reason why they're arguing in the first place:

Quote:
At least you know when to give up because you are beat. That's a precious gift.

So, what did you want to say about my hair? I'm sure it's extremely pertinent to the discussion at hand.

For how much you seem to get a thrill up your leg from using the term "butthurt," you sure to seem quite worked up yourself...

Rather than type you a novel where I try to show off how many big words I can misspell or misuse, I'll keep it simple for you:

The only somewhat factual statement you made in your entire wall of directionless text was dealing with festival numbers and stadium capacity...

The best, first, and most powerful example you could think of? One which is not even tied into the topic: A non-metal festival. If I were to ask you for evidence as to why Russians are on average taller than Germans, I suppose your first and most powerful fact would be "Americans are taller than Chinese people." That's about the equivalent of what you just pulled off. I hope you realize how silly it looks, but you probably don't.
Then you followed up this intellectual blunder with a somewhat (keyword: somewhat) more relevant point.... oh nevermind - 3,000 people. Yeah, you shot yourself in the foot again. Hold it - are you trying to prove ME right, or you? I'm losing track here. You're sending me mixed messages.

The bands that I "selected" so carefully from your list actually derived from the first line of it... something I pointed out. And so you either lack basic reading comprehension skills, or you are simply selective and biased in your presentation. Probably a bit of both.
And the fact stands - there is a reason that nobody, including metalheads, has heard of those bands - and that perhaps out of the miniscule number of people who have, most are likely to discard it for what it is - garbage. I sincerely apologize if that fact hurts your feelings. As I said, I'm sure some day the rest of the world and metal community will come around to your level of musical comprehension (which I hope is more developed than your reading comprehension).

And I think your hair is absolutely fabulous, sugar. No further comments on that. Learn to take a compliment! Don't get your panties in a wad over it.

Written by AngelofDeth on 23.10.2012 at 05:12

While this album has symphonic elements it is not simply symphonic metal. So i wouldnt make generalizations about the genre based off of this album.

And it is impossible to deny that this album is complex. Although, whether the complexity is a good thing or bad is up for debate.

It's not so much that I make a generalization based on this album, as that this album is a perfect example of the generalizations people (including me) tend to make about symphonic metal. I feel that when bands try to go this route, the metal part gets watered down to the point where it's no longer enjoyable. That's especially true for people like me who enjoyed Wintersun's debut back when it was new, but have since moved on to more extreme metal.

As for the complexity, that's of course a matter of opinion, but to me this isn't a complex album. It has long songs with a ton of layers, but the structures, rhythms and melodies are very straightforward. There really wasn't anything there that made me feel challenged or surprised.

Written by Italics on 23.10.2012 at 06:32

The only somewhat factual statement you made in your entire wall of directionless text was dealing with festival numbers and stadium capacity...

I think his factual statement was that you are butthurt that some prefer their metal to be more extreme than the flowery mainstream stuff. And he appears to be correct.

Written by Italics on 23.10.2012 at 06:32

For how much you seem to get a thrill up your leg from using the term "butthurt," you sure to seem quite worked up yourself...
Rather than type you a novel where I try to show off how many big words I can misspell or misuse

Don't misconstrue my attempts to challenge you on a vaguely intellectual level as "getting worked up." This is another attempt on your part to attack my presentation (again with another false assertion) whilst avoiding the actual topic at hand and you aren't concealing it very well. If you didn't understand the language I was using you should have taken your time and looked up the words you didn't comprehend (rather than limply dismissing them as incorrect or inappropriate. Just makes you look like a pleb). It's not like there's a time limit on a response.

Quote:

The only somewhat factual statement you made in your entire wall of directionless text was dealing with festival numbers and stadium capacity...

It's the only one thing I said was fact. I haven't tried to portray opinion and guess work as fact, like you have. Unlike you I'm clear on what i'm trying to say.

Quote:
The best, first, and most powerful example you could think of? One which is not even tied into the topic: A non-metal festival. If I were to ask you for evidence as to why Russians are on average taller than Germans, I suppose your first and most powerful fact would be "Americans are taller than Chinese people." That's about the equivalent of what you just pulled off. I hope you realize how silly it looks, but you probably don't.

On the contrary it's an ideal example. That festival showcases music which is far closer to the "noise" you think a lot of metal is. And as I said it's an area of music even less popular than metal, which was the locus of your argument if I'm not mistaken: less popular = less good. I offered one of each in fact, a non-metal and a metal festival, but strangely you decided to completely ignore my second example. I guess it wouldn't have held up against your flaccid attack here... hmm. You're trying to find fault where there is none, once again, to try and derail my points which you don't seem to want to attempt to counter. Stop doing this if you want to be taken seriously.

Quote:
Then you followed up this intellectual blunder with a somewhat more relevant poi.... oh nevermind - 3,000 people. Yeah, you shot yourself in the foot again. Hold it - are you trying to prove ME right, or you? I'm losing track here. You're sending me mixed messages.

Again this is pretty irrelevant, however for the sake of giving you an answer: You have continually painted an inaccurate picture of the more obscure genres of metal as extremely disparate and having no connection outside of the internet. My point was that thousands of people can indeed come together and enjoy such music. Ultimately though I'm pointing out, as many others here have said today, that you make it quite apparent that you lack the necessary understanding and knowledge to accurately summarise the kind of populace that make up extreme metal, rather you stick to your fantasy imaginings and consistently put them forward as empirical fact.

Quote:
The bands that I "selected" so carefully from your list actually derived from the first line of it... something I pointed out. And so you either lack basic reading comprehension skills, or you are simply selective and biased in your presentation. Probably a bit of both.

I'm sorry, the relevance of this semantic rambling is? You admit then that bands were chosen arbitrarily, which supports my assertion that you're making claims about bands and music you know nothing about. This is posturing on your part. Nothing more.

Quote:
And the fact stands - there is a reason that nobody, including metalheads, has heard of those bands - and that perhaps out of the miniscule number of people who have, most are likely to discard it for what it is - garbage.

Where is the fact of this? Facts requite evidence, and your verbatim ramblings about how much you dislike non-flower metal does not constitute evidence. You've ignored my point about popularity not being related to quality. I can see that you don't want to broach this subject, I assume because you have nothing further to say on it so I will take the initiative and assume you regard Justin Bieber as the height of musical quality as that's the only logical conclusion to the way you see music. Otherwise this is just more posturing on your part.

Quote:
I sincerely apologize if that fact hurts your feelings. As I said, I'm sure some day the rest of the world and metal community will come around to your level of musical comprehension (which I hope is more developed than your reading comprehension).

Well I'm not hurt since no facts have been laid out have they! I'm giving you a second chance though. Clearly since you discarded my attempts to "write a novel" with big words and such it's not me that's having trouble with comprehension, and you've consistently ignored my laid out points for you to counter. Instead you just did about 85% of this:

Quote:

It actually went more like this:
You make a false statement
I point out that it's false
You follow up with a completely inaccurate accusation
I correct that accusation
You deny you ever made the accusation and resort back to the false statement
I show you why your original statement is wrong... again
You give up because you have nothing that is backed up by evidence or factual to say

Irony. Love it.

Quote:

And I think your hair is absolutely fabulous, sugar. No further comments on that. Learn to take a compliment! Don't get your panties in a wad over it.

Again, lots of assertions about my current state. I think it's patently obvious which one of us is the more level headed here. We'll let others decide that shall we? I can see my efforts have been largely wasted as you seem more concerned with cyclical repetitions of the same points, presumably in the hope that if you keep hammering away at them they'll suddenly become true. I suggest you go back and actually take part in this discussion though, rather than making it a one way street.

7.5 is still pretty high, it's between good and very good. This album is not exceptional at all compared to the debut.

This is really one of those weird personel albums for me. So much wait and anticipation for this to finally release and sadly I think the metal scene has moved on quite a ways since the original plan for a release. I feel that by sitting on this for so long Jari has turned what could have become another shade of the Wintersun project, but 8 years of hype and over production has turned this into his continuing legacy more than anything else. Whether ti was uninspiration, writers block, girl problems, using a laptop edit music, the album just took way too long to create. In that time the metal scene has moved on and the entire symphonic metal style has really exploded in the past 4 years, with bands like Septic Flesh really showing how metal and symphonic elements could transform into something else. Even more so, tons of bands are doing this thing such as Ex Deox Flesh God Apocalypse, heck even Katatonia is going symphonic, and sadly I feel these bands are doing more interesting fusions of symphonic elements in there music. Sadly, from what I've seen done in the past few years has really taken away from the epicness of using symphonic elements in metal.

Reading the arguments between Joe and Italics is a good way to waste the night.

.........
Well..uh... I agree with the review. Except for the bit about the complexity of it, I think maybe it gives that impression because of the smothering of layers but its a pretty straightforward kind of style I would say. It's designed for immediate accessibility, which it fails to do for me to some extent given its tendency to feel very weighted down. This is power metal more or less, I like it to be easygoing, catchy and uplifting (perhaps even heavy or thrashy if I'm lucky), but this just sounds like it tries too hard to give the same feeling only with what I would describe as a facade of symphonic "complexities".

Gonna go ahead and not read these comments. The review sums up my exact feels about this album.

Wow this is probably the best review I've read on this site. I agree completely, with the score and everything. The first Wintersun album was my favorite EVER for years and although my tastes have evolved quite a bit, I still really like it, but this album just feels unfinished. I feel like if it wouldn't have been split into 2 parts it could have been a really great release. I'm hoping in Time 2 Jari shows off his guitar chops more often, since that is what attracted me to this band in the first place.

That Italics kid is pretty stupid. Is he always like that?

Personally I thought pretty much everything about this album was magnificent. It even surpasses the debut in my opinion (which is still amazing), but this album just takes it over the top and then some. I do feel that the intro is a little bit longer than necessary, but that's about the only real complaint I have for this album. Many people complain that this is overproduced, but I really thought it added to the epic and majestic quality of the album. Overproduction is never really a problem for me anyway, just as long as it adds to the album's atmosphere and sound in anyway. Even though it feels unfinished, it only gets me more excited for the next part to come out so that I can listen to both albums together as a whole. Definitely my personal Album of the Year.