Wintersun - Wintersun review
| Band: | Wintersun |
| Album: | Wintersun |
| Style: | Extreme power metal |
| Release date: | September 13, 2004 |
| Guest review by: | Andro Maximus |
Disc I
01. Beyond The Dark Sun
02. Winter Madness
03. Sleeping Stars
04. Battle Against Time
05. Death And The Healing
06. Starchild
07. Beautiful Death
08. Sadness And Hate
09. Winter Madness [demo] [Japanese bonus]
10. Beyond The Dark Sun [demo] [Japanese bonus]
11. Death And The Healing [demo] [Japanese bonus]
Disc II [Live At Summer Breeze 2005 DVD] [2006 Special Tour Edition re-release bonus]
01. Beyond The Dark Sun
02. Battle Against Time
03. Sleeping Stars
04. Beautiful Death
05. Death And The Healing
06. Winter Madness
A most beautiful melancholic album cover, fast sweeping guitar solos, some fantastic melodies, and an epic, if slightly overproduced soundscape - Wintersun's debut album is clearly the result of a lot of passion and hard work and is obviously intended to be a monumental album. It is a shame then, that with so much going for it, Wintersun falls short of being the masterpiece that it is intended to be.
There is no denying Jari's musical abilities with regard to writing good melodies and riffs. The man has some skill, and upon your first listening. it may very well happen that Wintersun will blow you away. However, multiple listenings will soon uncover some problems, and those include a few serious ones. First of all, while the songwriting is mostly solid, not all of the songs are that special. "Winter Madness" and "Death And The Healing" are great tracks - amazing even - but most of the rest are pretty average, almost forgettable. One wonders if some of the leading power metal bands out there could not pull of a better result, if they only added some blastbeats and harsh vocals to their music.
Speaking of vocals, Jari does his best to sound powerful and epic, but he only half succeeds. His growls are good enough, but the clean vocals - especially the higher notes - sound rather poor and occasionally border on comical. Luckily, Mr Mäenpää's guitar playing abilities are of a much higher degree than his singing and many of the solos are quite impressive from a technical point of view.
Thus, what we have here is an undeniably good album from an undeniably capable musician, that impresses in more areas than it disappoints, but does not age very well. While Wintersun's first album is a worthy addition to most metalheads' collections, it is unlikely that it will be remembered as a truly timeless classic.
A final note on the production: Going for mind-blowing epicness has ironically ensured that accusations of an occasional 16-bit sound are not completely without merit.
Rating breakdown
| Performance: | 8 |
| Songwriting: | 7 |
| Originality: | 8 |
| Production: | 7 |
Written by Andro Maximus | 27.07.2014
Guest review disclaimer:
This is a guest review, which means it does not necessarily represent the point of view of the MS Staff.
This is a guest review, which means it does not necessarily represent the point of view of the MS Staff.
Rating:
10
10
|
Rating: 10 |
Those readers who are familiar with the history of folk/power-metallers Ensiferum will doubtless be familiar with the history of Wintersun (i.e. that after walking out on Ensiferum, main man Jari Maënpäa formed the latter as a solo project). Speculation was rife in melodic metal circles - expectations for 'Wintersun' were largely high, though some suspected that Wintersun would be little more than Ensiferum Pt.II. In spite of the various similarities between this release and those of Maënpäa's former band (and make no mistake- they do exist), 'Wintersun' is very much an exceptional album, and will be reviewed as such. Read more ›› |
Rating:
9.4
9.4
|
Rating: 9.4 |
Ok, just to make it clear right at the beginning, I absolutely love/adore/worship (choose preferred term) this album. And I'm not alone, just check the number of fans in "Featured bands" section. So reviewing this album comes with great responsibility. Jari Mäenpää started as a part of Ensiferum. Great black folk metal band if you'd ask me. So why did he leave? He came up with some interesting not-so-Ensiferum-like ideas. So he started his own project with drummer Kai Hahto of Rotten Sound grinders. But where are the others? Where are synth, bass, second guitar players we can hear in there? Well by the time Wintersun was recorded Jari Mäenpää did everything except drums. Yes, everything except drums. Later on Jukka Koskinken of Norther and Teemu Mäntysaari joined to finish the lineup. Read more ›› |
Rating:
9.2
9.2
|
Rating: 9.2 |
Wintersun is the band Jari Mäenpää started after leaving Ensiferum. Some people dispise this band because they compare it to Ensiferum and say it's worse. Big mistake. This probably isn't as bombastic and catchy as Ensiferum, of course, but, what is Wintersun? I've seen them labelled as Melodic Death Metal, as well as Extreme Power Metal. The first thing that comes to my mind though, is Children Of Bodom. But Children Of Bodom they are not. They play somewhat epic, almost progressive Melodic Death/Black Metal with Folk influences. You may see it as less Folk-like, as only some riffs have Folk qualities, but more aggressive and complex Ensiferum. It's far more than just that however. Read more ›› |
Rating:
10
10
|
Rating: 10 |
When in 2004 Jari Mäenpää left Ensiferum, few people could imagine what impact that would leave on the metal community. Ensiferum got on pretty we'll, but what Jari did with his new band Wintersun was something quite unexpected. There are only few albums that deserve this kind of praise and hype, but I think this one is one of them. Read more ›› |
Comments
| Erik M. Posts: 3104  |
Not that I care about this album a lot, but all I can say is that your score is a hell of a lot more accurate than the other 4 reviews that have an average score of a 9.7. Talk about an overrated album if there ever was one.
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| Andro Maximus Account deleted |
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| AngelofDeth Cyborg Raptor Posts: 1183  |
Quote: Portions of Beyond The Dark Sun, Sleeping Stars, Beautiful Death, Sadness And Hate are undeniably memorable imo. But you are right that the album is a bit muddy as a whole and while has epic memorable riffs and melodies here and there fails to have solid and distinct individual songs. I like this album but it's true, it ain't perfect.
---- pewpew.. gotcha
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| Wes Posts: 424  |
Terrible, how can you even rate an album so late and with so much "hype" as they say? This should be a non-rating review.
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| Ace Frawley The Spaceman Posts: 1459  |
Written by deadone on 01.08.2014 at 08:44 Wow, you got a lot of bang for your 0.02 buck.
---- The sun shines over The Fool...
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| Andro Maximus Account deleted |
Andro Maximus
Account deleted Written by Wes on 01.08.2014 at 05:48 I felt like I had something to say about this album that the other reviews did not, the rating is a part of what I had to say. I like to give ratings to things, if you don't, then you can just ignore the rating and focus on the text 
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| Zap Posts: 3577  |
Quote: Not agreeing or disagreeing here, but if you think Jari's vocals sound comical on Wintersun you should check this out: This is the demo of "Sadness And Hate" from way back in 1997 in Jari's first band Immemorial. (the clean vocals start at around 27:28) The clean vocals have certainly improved since then.
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| Bad English Tage Westerlund Posts: 62002  |
Written by Erik M. on 27.07.2014 at 16:07 only what gets 10 here might be cover and I agree about this one, 10 is overated for this one
---- I stand whit Ukraine and Israel. They have right to defend own citizens. Stormtroopers of Death - "Speak English or Die"  I better die, because I never will learn speek english, so I choose dieing
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| Bloody Rain I Am The Night Posts: 1192  |
This is the best review of this album on metalstorm imo.
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