Wintersun - Time II review
| Band: | Wintersun |
| Album: | Time II |
| Style: | Extreme power metal |
| Release date: | August 30, 2024 |
| A review by: | ScreamingSteelUS |
01. Fields Of Snow
02. The Way Of The Fire
03. One With The Shadows
04. Ominous Clouds
05. Storm
06. Silver Leaves
Well, it’s about damn time.
If you have been living on an isolated Andamanese island all your life, there are a couple of things you might not be aware of. First, we've discovered penicillin. It's great. Second, Wintersun sucks. And I don't mean that in a bizarrely affectionate way, like how people say "Primus sucks" when they actually want to heap accolades on Col. Claypool's bassy banditos. I mean that I no longer wear my Wintersun t-shirt outside the house because I don't want people to think that I am an easily manipulated moron (I am, but that's why I have to take extra precautions). I mean that we are going to look this gift horse in the mouth and we're going to apply a mandibular microscope so powerful that it can actually detect the impossibly minute jots of respect that I still have for Jari Mäenpää.
There is no sense in pretending that Time II doesn't have some of the heaviest baggage that a metal album has ever been saddled with. I first became a Wintersun fan c. 2010 and people were already getting sick of jokes about how Time was taking forever (it was originally slated for a late-2006 release, mind, and as one album). If you've ever hovered near this circle of the metal sphere, you've picked up on the shroud of weariness hanging over Wintersun's stalwart fan base; we've sure nominated them for Drama of the Year enough times in the last two decades. Wintersun is no longer a band but a carnival.
Generally, I try to respect an artist's personal and creative needs. I respect Bolt Thrower's decision not to continue recording on the grounds that they couldn't meet their own standards (and who could top Those Once Loyal anyway?); I don't demand that Devin Townsend bring back Strapping Young Lad, foundational though those recordings are to me; as eager as I am for King Diamond to release his long-awaited return, currently sitting at 9 years since announcement, 17 since its predecessor, I'm not cursing his name for not delivering it yet; I can even understand Rotting Christ's decision not to release any new music since 2007 for some reason. But Green Carnation, Virgin Black, Toxik, Disillusion, Conception, Porcupine Tree, Heavy Load, and Heir Apparent weren't engaged in constant warfare during their lengthy absences. Warlord and Death Angel and Melt-Banana weren't teasing incomprehensible updates, shilling repackages of inadequate amounts of new music, begging for money, launching crowdfund after crowdfund, establishing Patreons of questionable value, antagonizing their record label, constructing entirely new workspaces, getting subsidized by their governments, building jacuzzis, or embracing the joke about jacuzzis and repeating it as if people weren't genuinely kind of pissed off that their money wasn't showing any returns after years and years. Hell, Sleep's comeback after 15 years was announced as a surprise the day before. All the fuss about Time isn't just fuss about time. It's the way Jari has managed his commercial enterprise. Frankly, the struggle to continue caring about this album is likely at a point for many people where it doesn't matter how good Time II actually is because the investment will overshadow the return. I myself have not reached that state of decay, but it would be understandable.
Now, I'd say we're still justified in whinging about the wait, given that this album was first announced 19 years ago and apparently has been under active construction for significant stretches since then. In those 19 years, Alice Cooper has released six albums, Magnum have released ten, Boris have released 29, Agathocles have done more splits than Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Buckethead has released at least one album dedicated to every individual atom in the universe. Sigh even beat Wintersun to releasing an album with over 100 tracks per song, which I noted in my review of Graveward back in 2015. We're not looking at a huge quantity/quality dichotomy here either.
I hope you'll pardon the excess of information you're already aware of - this will be the last occasion on which we'll ever be able to complain about Time’s delay in the present tense, so I have to get it all out here, partly for my own catharsis and partly for posterity's sake. There will come a point in the future when all of this context fades away and Jari's schemes wither in fragments of time. For fans who have only just discovered Wintersun or are yet to discover them, this doesn't matter at all, and my lengthy diatribe will seem foolish. That is why, after spending the length of an entire review saying nothing whatsoever about the essence of Time II as an album, I will finally get to the music.
This is exactly what it says on the packaging: it’s Time part two, an epic of lengthy, progressive compositions that spin massive symphonies around dramatic melodeath concepts. The melodies dance between folk and classical, sometimes swelling into the affirmative majesty of power metal, sometimes puzzling over an Asiatic wrinkle. The crackling, forceful speed-riffs and pummeling drums that make Finnish extreme power metal what it is are well in evidence, as are multiple Jaris raising exultant chorus in harmony. Coy, thoughtful, and bombastic all in turn, the melodies support gigantic hooks and thunder, but they have a certain fragility to them: if this album like its predecessors paints its native landscape with sound, you can hear the flowers as well as the mountains. Helping that along is what I’m going to call a synth erhu, which did appear on Time I but serves as a more prominent component here, particularly on “Fields Of Snow” and “Silver Leaves”.
One of the less infuriating developments leading up to this album was Jari’s decision to retire from guitar to focus on vocals while performing live, and while that decision precedes this release by quite a bit, it makes sense when listening to the guitar arrangements; I suspect that they may have to hire yet one more additional guitarist to pull off some of these parts live. Jari’s guitar skill has long been evident – as a soloist, as a riffwriter, as a shredder, as a composer – but I feel as though I’m learning his facility for the first time again. The guitars have more lead time here than on past albums, and while there’s no great departure from Time I (the instrumental portions of the title track are an apparent forerunner), the precision, tone, and ingenuity are so flawless here that I would dub this the best batch of work from Wintersun’s guitarists. Riff-wise, you’ll never beat stuff like “Beyond The Dark Sun” or “Death And The Healing”, but we are now in the realm of full-fledged orchestration. I shouldn’t fail to credit Teemu Mäntysaari as well; I have no specific information as to who recorded what, and while I’m inclined to assume that much of what we hear is Jari simply because of the nature of this project and this album, I’ll give them equal credit for having created a fantastic piece of work.
What we know for sure belongs to Jari is the songwriting, and the extensive instrumental passages remind me of his professed love for film score – you can feel the movements of many musical ideas throughout and a capacity for feeling that creates a kind of narrative symphony. If Jari were to compose the score for a film, I suspect the results would be successful, although he’d better start now if he wants to be done in time for the 37th Indiana Jones movie. Nothing on this album strikes me quite as mightily and builds with such consistent memorability as “Sons Of Winter And Stars”, which is my favorite Wintersun song, but the emotional richness found on “Land Of Snow And Sorrow” and “Time” flourishes here, particularly on “Silver Leaves”, and there is another triumphant epic in “The Way Of The Fire”. After a couple of weeks with Time II, I feel that it is the inferior half, but the difference is slight, and possibly due to the 12 years of bias I have toward the first half – this is an excellently crafted and performed piece of music in every moment, and were there not 19 years of pressure I’d say that not a single Wintersun fan should be disappointed.
Among the many risks that Jari took in keeping this album in the vault for so long was the possibility that Wintersun might become irrelevant. Their first album is what I would call the greatest-ever example of the classic Finnish fusion of melodeath, power, and folk, a sound so distinctive and vital to modern metal that it ought to enjoy protected-designation-of-origin status; Time I built on that exceedingly well with the additional weight of its symphonic and progressive elements. These styles have proliferated immensely over the years, or at least the former variety – they’re beautiful, they’re sensational, and they sell. And when you’re asleep at the wheel for so long, you have to expect that some of your own progeny will sneak up and change the cards. We might have gotten this far and found that nobody needed another helping.
But listening to Time II a whole 12 years after Time I, those apprehensions are whisked away with the wind: the Wintersymphony is inimitably dense and complex. The depth of the sound – the spitfire melodies, the veritable forests of orchestration, the interplay of instrument upon voice upon instrument – is so unlike anything that Wintersun’s contemporaries are attempting. For similar songwriting and stylistic blends, there are easy comparisons: Ensiferum, Brymir, Kalmah, Xanthochroid, Whispered, etc. But when it comes to the sheer depth of this sound, when I’m judging the complexity and thoroughness of all those layers, I’m drawn first and foremost to Rhapsody, whose collaborations with actual orchestras and dominant classical grounding gave their landmark albums a similarly cinematic personality. I hate to say it because it credits the necessity of the time expenditure, but Wintersun more than any other contender possesses voluminous vivacity: this sounds like the tremendous effort that it is, and the result is a rare grandeur.
At the end of this album, I feel an odd mixture of victory and defeat. When Wintersun delivers, it delivers like it’s gutting a goose for hors d’oeuvres in the back of a speeding pizza wagon. They just need to deliver more than once a decade (I don’t consider The Forest Seasons to have done so). I do love Wintersun on a musical level, and I have been successful so far in keeping my long-fermenting frustration with the circumstances from poisoning my experience with Time II itself; my honest assessment is that this album is amazing and I have to admit that I felt a spark of rare disbelieving joy when the promo actually showed up in my inbox unexpectedly. At the same time, I don’t want to forget that I am sick of Wintersun’s bullshit, and I’m not going to argue with any fan who won’t give this album a second thought; Jari’s antics have soured me on his eccentric artist shtick and I’ve come to view his PR tactics as rather more exploitative and arrogant than enamoring. The ends are not going to justify the means for everybody out there. But ultimately that’s a journey for each fan to embark on individually; I’ve told you about the album, and that’s all I can do. Wintersun, you’ve succeeded. Now never, ever do this again.
Rating breakdown
| Performance: | 10 |
| Songwriting: | 8 |
| Originality: | 8 |
| Production: | 9 |
 | Written on 16.08.2024 by I'm the reviewer, and that means my opinion is correct. |
Rating:
9.3
9.3
|
Rating: 9.3 |
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. Read more ›› |
Comments page 2 / 3
Comments: 74
Visited by: 543 users
| Desha delicious dish Posts: 817  |
Looks like it is finally Time II lay all the jokes to rest. I'm happy Wintersun fans at least got some seemingly great music out of it. Hell, I might even try it myself after reading this wonderful writeup. Thanks for that.
---- You are the hammer, I am the nail building a house in the fire on the hill
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| Arcticus Posts: 188  |
Fantastic review. I never got involved in all the Wintersun hate per se, I was more of a distant observer that still became disillusioned, no doubt, but in a more detached sort of way where I don't really care enough to hate Jari or anything like that. He will always have my respect to some degree for the first WS album as well as his work with Ensiferum (still one of my favourite bands), and honestly it seems to me like he has some sort of disorder that causes him to act erratically (OCD, ASD, ADHD, who knows) - which probably makes me feel more sympathetic or forgiving towards him than most others. Anyway I will give this a listen for sure - I did enjoy Time I, but didn't actually listen to it all that much - the length and density of the songs sort of precludes it from being something I'll just throw on casually. Thanks, SSUS, for taking the time to write such a considered and comprehensive piece!
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| DarkWingedSoul Posts: 1385  |
I wonder which band will first go down for having used AI to write an album.... and then we would have stickers like RealMusic, not AI generated... its coming folks...
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| Metren Dreadrealm Posts: 1410  |
Written by DarkWingedSoul on 19.08.2024 at 09:02 I’m quite certain it won’t be Wintersun. For someone as egotistical as Jari, surrendering creative control to anyone or anything is probably absurd and unacceptable. A.I. assistance, even in small amounts, is something that most bands on Metal Storm would never entertain. Based on my understanding of artistic integrity and the typical artist’s ego, I believe so. If we want to stay on-topic, we can explore this further on the Artificial Intelligence thread: https://metalstorm.net/forum/topic.php?topic_id=90255
---- My one-man project's Bandcamp with free downloads: https://dreadrealm.bandcamp.com/
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| DarkWingedSoul Posts: 1385 |
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| Kvothe Posts: 88  |
Guys don't worry about the score, since there are like 10 plus pending reviews with a minimum of 9.5 score 
---- Here, waiting very quiet right in front Valaritas, the door that hides the tomb.
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| Lamahe Posts: 57  |
I might not listen to Time II when it comes out but this review was fun to read for sure 
---- “And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche
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| Cynic Metalhead Ambrish Saxena Posts: 7564  |
How once acclaimed extreme flower metal outfit Winterfun now become a mere troll band?! This new album might become another entertainement package.
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| ScreamingSteelUS Editor-in-Chief Admin Posts: 5927  |
Written by Arcticus on 19.08.2024 at 05:39 Thank you for taking the time to read it. The funny thing about Time I is that even though it's 40-something minutes long it has only three full songs on it, so in my mind it's a short and sweet album that I can just throw on; this one having more songs, slightly less lengthy each but still quite substantial, will probably make it feel more like a whole big production to sit down and listen to. Those first two Ensiferum albums are brilliant; Jari's obsessive perfectionism certainly yields results, whatever else it entails.
---- "Earth is small and I hate it" - Lum Invader I'm the Agent of Steel.
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| Lvcifer Posts: 11  |
Written by Cynic Metalhead on 17.08.2024 at 18:47 How can I know what exactly he missed if I haven't heard the album yet? But I can say that in his review ScreamingSteelUS writes a lot about his attitude towards Wintersun/Jari/TIMEII, but writes little about the music itself. I didn't get any idea of what exactly awaits on the album - the review is full of words, but little information about the music. If you want to know what I consider a good review, just read this: https://antichristmagazine.com/review-wintersun-time-ii-nuclear-blast/ This review is much shorter, but contains much more useful information.
---- https://www.last.fm/ru/user/LuciferBathory
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| Cynic Metalhead Ambrish Saxena Posts: 7564 |
Written by Lvcifer on 20.08.2024 at 06:42 It looks like it's written by someone who is listening to Wintersun for the first time. We have better reviews covered for Wintersun here than just mere highlighting about the "reaction" one must have listened to the album on your provided link. As for Screaming's review, he has very smartly analysed the new album by giving references, sound and highlighting the progress made without overtly gone overboard of Jari's annoyance to check on fans' nerves and dough holding a new album unnecessarily for years.
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| The Melting Snow Posts: 675  |
Love the review. It's made me pull up Wintersun's discography and i'll be listening to Time I today. . The review is poetry
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| Truzo Posts: 1 |
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| VadimV Posts: 2 |
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| Silver6Bullets Posts: 1 |
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| 24emd Theory Snob Posts: 1080  |
Written by Silver6Bullets on 30.08.2024 at 09:00 I've listened to the album every day since release and that might just be my favourite track from it. It's perfect.
---- "I am too stupid to be human, and I lack common sense." - Proverbs 30:2 "Music? Well, it's just entertainment, folks!" - Devin Townsend Best 2024 Albums
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| JakdMan Posts: 4 |
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| JakdMan Posts: 4 |
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| Cynic Metalhead Ambrish Saxena Posts: 7564 |
What's hysterical none of these fans are literally talking about the quality of an album rather than defending their idol and his so-called royal work he invested for years from his money laundering scheme(crowdfunding and then releasing a boring looking jovial shitty cookie). The last person I remember talked about Wintersun's Time II in details was ScreamingSteelUS.
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| ScreamingSteelUS Editor-in-Chief Admin Posts: 5927 |
Written by JakdMan on 01.09.2024 at 08:57 I'm afraid I can't see what about your comment invalidates any of the criticisms I've leveled against Jari. If he found it difficult to pitch a 90-minute album, that's certainly understandable - I could imagine a label balking at such a gigantic release, and I think even I as a fan, if I didn't know any better and were looking at Time as one album, would find that prohibitive. However, I don't think that that really has anything to do with what is under scrutiny here, as the difficulty in marketing a double-length album is not the reason why Time took so long. Nor is it relevant that artists make the bulk of their money from touring and merch - I am aware of this, but it doesn't factor into anything that I said in my review, because I haven't criticized Jari for prioritizing either of those things, and in fact I don't begrudge him the need for them. Nightwish is surely capable of financing their own dedicated studio/living space/retreat hideaway from the proceeds of their lucrative career. That is money they earned and they can spend it how they wish, and I can certainly understand how having access to that kind of space would be beneficial to the creative and production processes. The difference is that they did not, to my knowledge, ask their fans to pay for it up front with money that they had not yet earned. The end result is similar in that the fans are financing the workspace, but the means differ crucially. Nightwish spent years gigging, recording, and cultivating their popularity to the point that they can afford these things. Wintersun remain shy of that point in their career and so instead ask for them directly. To be clear, I'm not disparaging the concept of crowdfunding. I have no problem with that as a general rule and I've contributed to plenty of campaigns myself, so I don't think you can construe anything I said in my review to be disapproving. This is an issue of scale: the amount of money Jari asked for, the goals he sought to achieve with it, and the immense amount of time that this undertaking required all go far beyond the usual degree of appropriate presumption for a thing like a crowdfunding campaign for an album. If you're running such a campaign, you need to keep in mind that people have entrusted you with their money because they expect to receive a return. They've given you that money on faith, on credit, and taking 19 years to return while being obnoxious, conceited, and inadequately transparent is not what I would consider evidence of good custodianship of that trust. Frankly, even if Jari had never asked a cent of his followers, I think they would have been justified in feeling some degree of distrust or frustration if he'd taken this long - if you make promises, people expect you to keep them. But that's an entirely different conversation. I'm perfectly aware that construction is expensive. Studios are expensive. Recording equipment is expensive. Believe me, there is no doubt about this, and even if common sense doesn't get you all the way there, there's the fact that Wintersun achieved the second most successful music-related Indiegogo campaign of all time and it still wasn't enough to finance the sauna. And of course it stands to reason that if Jari has his own studio and his own adjacent living space, he can roll out of bed and record whenever, day or night, he can focus, he can exercise creative control, he can work on his own timeline and to his own needs without being beholden to a label's oversight or the strictures of working with a professional studio run as a business. Obviously that all takes time and attention. You haven't spelled out anything that isn't readily apparent. I'm not denying that producing an album of this sophistication and caliber takes a great deal of time and money, and perhaps it is in some way hypocritical that I enjoy the results of it while criticizing the means of its production. It seems to me, however, that you are approaching this from the perspective that Jari was entitled to all of these things because they were necessary to make Time I and Time II. I contend that he is not. The fact of the matter is that Wintersun are not unique in any of the difficulties they face, but they are unique in how they have chosen to face those difficulties. Every band in the world would benefit from their own dedicated recording space and state-of-the-art equipment and the freedom from financial woes to focus on being creative. I'll bet you there isn't a band on this website that wouldn't love that. But Wintersun is the only band that made a show of being entitled to that and reaping the profits before delivering the products. I could finally write a novel if I didn't have to work two jobs. But I do, so I can't, and that just sucks for me, but I'm not going to ask you to subsidize me so that I can write freely for the next two decades and publish a certified classic, am I? Ultimately I'm not quite sure what your thesis is or what you think I'm saying, but I will clarify one point: I'm not saying that Jari is a scammer. I'm saying he's an asshole.
---- "Earth is small and I hate it" - Lum Invader I'm the Agent of Steel.
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| Cynic Metalhead Ambrish Saxena Posts: 7564 |
Written by ScreamingSteelUS on 01.09.2024 at 10:21 Hit the nail on the head. In corporate terms, you asked for investment from a shareholder and you fucked on ROI(for any non-business folk here it's Return on Investment). Jari can never be a smart businessman who after a gap of years incurring a loss in his business deal, neither he's a good musician. He's a well-reputed asshole.
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| The Melting Snow Posts: 675 |
I loved the review when I first read it, purely because of how well it was written. Now after a giving the album a couple of spins, I can agree with the opinions in the review as well. The performance is great, the guitars, drums, vocals and orchestrations. It's been a long time since I liked the guitars in an album this much. not just the leads, i love how the rhythm section compliments the leads. Kai has done some cool drumming here, though the drum sound itself isn't my favorite.
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| The Melting Snow Posts: 675 |
Can we, as consumers of art, try to separate the art from the artist? I have long trolled Jari on his Facebook posts... I still might. But I can't deny this album has some really creative and good art on display. We do an injustice to ourselves when we let our distaste for a person come in the way of how we consume their art. If I keep thinking of the drama Jari put up for more than a decade I'll find reasons to not like the guitars on One With the Shadows, for example... so all I hear and feel is the music and not what came before it. Trust me, it's liberating.
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| JakdMan Posts: 4 |
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| Cynic Metalhead Ambrish Saxena Posts: 7564 |
Written by JakdMan on 01.09.2024 at 21:35 What you're talking about?
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| ScreamingSteelUS Editor-in-Chief Admin Posts: 5927 |
Written by Cynic Metalhead on 01.09.2024 at 23:28 I believe he means that he felt that Jari was communicative about the scale of the project he was embarking upon - in other words, that Time I and Time II would be long-term projects that wouldn’t produce results for an indefinite period of time and fans should temper their expectations accordingly. Some of this came through, but it depends on how much you read into his updates and how much you were willing to humor him for all of that time.
---- "Earth is small and I hate it" - Lum Invader I'm the Agent of Steel.
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| Cynic Metalhead Ambrish Saxena Posts: 7564 |
Whether it's In Flames or Tool, fans goes berserk to shield the band under any circumstances. Along with Wintersun, they all give better entertainment doses than Indian soap operas.
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| The Melting Snow Posts: 675 |
Whether it's In Flames or Tool, haters go berserk bashing the band under any circumstances. Along with Wintersun, they all give better entertainment doses than Indian soap operas.
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| JakdMan Posts: 4 |
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| musclassia Staff Posts: 7640  |
Written by ScreamingSteelUS on 01.09.2024 at 10:21 This comment is pretty bang-on, and particularly this paragraph. Every band in the world would love to have huge resources to produce their albums with, and a number of bands have opted for a crowdfunding route to finance the production process, as it is very expensive - my band's album cost about £3k to produce, and that is on the lower end of the spectrum considering it's a very affordable studio we used and only had the core metal band features (vocals, guitars, bass, drums) to record and mix. Most bands that crowdfund their albums, however, will be appreciative enough of the fact that they're receiving fans' money in advance and endeavour to deliver on a reasonable timeframe; for example, Persefone launched a crowdfunding campaign for Aathma in January 2016 and released the album in February 2017, or Ad Infinitum's crowdfunding campaign for their debut album concluding in January 2019 and the album Chapter I: Monarchy being released in April 2020 (of note, both campaigns raised 5% or less of what Wintersun's Forest Seasons campaign did, and both albums sound very good from a production standpoint). For a band that's committed to making an album, I'd say for crowdfunding to be done ethically, the album should be pretty close to fully written before the campaign is launched, and there should be a feasible plan in place for the album to be released within a couple of years of the campaign being successful. For Wintersun, the crowdfunding campaign linked with The Forest Seasons was launched 7 years before the eventual release of Time II, and that was 11 years after the band had announced that Time was scheduled to be mixed. It is a unique situation, particularly as the crowdfunding campaign accumulated far more funds than the vast majority of other metal album crowdfunding campaigns. At least part of that is due to the whole 'we need to build our own studio' aspect, and really, it is not necessary to build a whole studio to create Time II. I'm near the end of listening to it, and it's a very good album for the style, and it does sound very good production-wise, probably better than most similar albums, but it doesn't sound $450k better than the debut, or Ensiferum's albums with Jari, or a multitude of other folk/melodeath/power metal albums released in the past 2 decades - frankly, the intro track sounds downright odd. Making a new studio is an obscene luxury - $450k is enough to hire Kurt Ballou and his studio for nearly 2 straight years, and I imagine most higher-tier producers/studios would be comparable; that is more than enough to make an album like Time II without building a whole new studio. It is unreasonable entitlement to plead for your fans to generate near half a million dollars for you before you'll make an album that you've teased for over a decade, when an album of equivalent sound quality could be made on a fraction of a budget. Wintersun fans by and large seem fairly happy to have waited 2 decades and contributed however much of their money to get these two albums, and good for them, but it is a very rational standpoint to look at the announcements, excuses and calls for funding across the past 2 decades and consider it to be unethical behaviour, particularly when there was very good reason to believe that Wintersun were outright scamming their fans in the same way Corelia did with their own crowdfunding campaign and would never actually deliver Time II.
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