Band:	Wintersun
Album:	Time II
Style:	Extreme power metal
Release date:	August 30, 2024
Guest review by:	Sillyman

01. Fields Of Snow
02. The Way Of The Fire
03. One With The Shadows
04. Ominous Clouds
05. Storm
06. Silver Leaves

Considering the long wait this album had, the hype doomed the album to not be the perfect 10 that 18 years of hype may cause people to expect. I, however, am a newer Wintersun fan, discovering the band in the spring of 2023. This made my expectations be a little more grounded. I watched the reveal video for Time II when it came out, and immediately started listening to the audio samples over and over again.

The album is excellent. The mix is perfect, except for 1 choice that I disagree with; that choice is "The Way Of The Fire" having way too loud drums that somewhat drown out the quieter vocals. This takes away from those epic choruses that Wintersun is so great at. Otherwise, the mix and mastering is a 10/10.

The digital orchestration is on the album is excellent; it really adds to the sounds of the album, and listening to them by themselves makes you think of a classical piece.

My favourite track was "Storm". The song is a very visual piece of music. You can hear the storm building up in the horizon, then it hits hard. After the solo that serves as the "peak" of the storm's fury, then it starts to calm down. It's a perfect song, that gets a 10/10. The solo on this track is one of the best Wintersun solos, perhaps second only to "Winter Madness" from their self-titled album.

I like the way the album is structured with the endings and starts to songs melding together. This also works well when listening to the album along with its first part Time I, as it was originally intended to be a single album.