Band:	Winterlong
Album:	Longing For Winter
Style:	Power metal, Progressive metal
Release date:	May 24, 2008
A review by:	Raiden

01. Sky Travellers
02. The Priest
03. Northman
04. Bloodshred
05. Like Ships In The Night
06. Nosferatu
07. Wild Winter Nights
08. And So We Remember
09. Each Night We Die
10. Twisting My Tail
11. The Hunter
12. Retaliation
13. Winterlong
14. Judgement Day
15. The Prediction Of M. King Hubbart
16. Dragon Breath
17. The Heartland
18. Elements

Like most compilation albums, this newest release entitled "Longing For Winter" from Sweden's Winterlong is a good reference for those new to the band. The tracks don't flow through chronologically but there is an even spread from past Winterlong albums and this new compilation also features four brand new songs. If someone wanted to listen to each of these "half albums" in order it would of course be only too easy. Perhaps it is better to listen to Longing For Winter that way if one is mainly interested in using the album as a research tool. For everyone else it's an interesting intertwining of progressed Heavy/Power metal.

As one could expect Longing For Winter is a pretty varied affair. You get traditional melodic and highly catchy songs from a few years ago like the track "Northman". Then a couple of songs later you hear more simplistic and straightforward modern sounding heavy riffing with interlaced keyboards from Winterlong's more recent work (the brand new tracks that conclude this album also follow this style). Because of this diversity and interesting progression of the life of Winterlong this compilation album should have something of interest to most Power Metal fans. Longing For Winter's almost 80 minute length also provides pretty good value as well. You'd have to have a second disc to fit any more music on!

The main protagonist throughout the whole Winterlong affair, Thorbjörn Englund, is also quite a technically proficient guitarist. The track "Bloodshred" is essentially just an almost-four-minute guitar solo but it's quite technical and fast moving and is a welcome filler on this release as I'm sure it would've been on its original album.

Overall Longing For Winter is a dynamic compilation with a lot to offer. I'm not sure if there are any songs on other Winterlong albums that are better than these, making this album strictly not a "best of" but after hearing this, it makes me want to explore Winterlong's back catalogue just to find out!