Band:	Moonsorrow
Album:	Verisäkeet
Style:	Viking folk metal
Release date:	February 25, 2005
A review by:	Undercraft

01. Karhunkynsi
02. Haaska
03. Pimeä
04. Jotunheim
05. Kaiku

Moonsorrow is back with their fourth full-length album, the chances that you don't know this band are very rare, because these Finns have obtained quite a share of popularity in the past years with their Blackish Viking/Folk Metal. This time things are a little different, while they still hang out in the Viking genre and they still sing in Finnish, the approach of the music is more Dark, and at the same time, Progressive and mostly of all, Epic.

I think this band lives under the permanent shadow of "Kivenkantaja" their third album, a masterpiece if you ask me. To try to top that album, and do something different here, Moonsorrow decided to sound more Epic, and composed extremely long songs, only 5 songs graces this album which last 70 minutes, you do the math.

While the band members are very talented with each instrument, folk and non-folk, their songwriting talent doesn't holds the creativity to maintain the listener interested during a 10-15 minute song, and of course, now try 5 of them!
While each song has its moments, only one caught my attention from the get-go and maintained me interested during its 14 minutes "Pimeä" (Dark) is a great song and definitively the one that stands from the rest. Then, some other sections of other songs also stands, like the fast parts in "Haaska" (Carrion), the acoustic intro from "Jotunheim" or the campfire song "Kaiku" (Echo) sadly, the rest of this song is just ambience sound, one hint guys, if you leave the campfire and all of you go to your sleeping bags to rest, shut down the tape recorder.

Definitively this is Moonsorrow at the Epic peak of their career, but not musical, this is a harsher Moonsorrow, filled with heathen hymns and a wide array of instruments, but I rather prefer 9 normal songs from these guys rather than 5 long ones. Next time, leave long songs for Doom Metal.