In Embers

Say what one may about former Ensiferum front man and current Wintersun mastermind Jari Mäenpää, said composer, arranger and internet drama junkie has been something of a trend-setter in melodic death metal circles ever since he struck out on his own in 2004. The peculiar blend of adventurous, bordering on progressive and highly technical showmanship with a crisp, frosty atmosphere that defined his latter project's eponymous debut stood apart from even the more nuanced and dense compositional efforts of fellow Finnish outfits such as Eternal Tears Of Sorrow and Omnium Gatherum, having both a more complex makeup yet also a greater proliferation of hooks due to the underlying folk metal influences held over from Ensiferum. Though originally this newly minted niche saw a handful of fellow Finnish emulators such as Frosttide and Brymir, within the past few years this trend has filtered into much of Central Europe, with such newcomers as Germany's Nahtram and Austria's Black Forest providing their own spins on the Wintersun formula. It was no doubt inevitable that eventually Poland would get in on the craze, but the newcomer quintet Aether showcases that a stylistic well upon which many idea have already been drawn can still contain a few surprises if their debut In Embers is any indication.

The dueling forces of fire and ice are a common visual that goes with this complex subset of melodeath, but Aether's approach on their debut LP In Embers takes on more of a straightforward, by the numbers formula. The massive, drawn out songwriting that typifies a number of ambitious emulators of the Wintersun's latter day formula such as the Canadian act Atavistia are nowhere to be found here, but rather a more hook-driven mixture of Finnish and Swedish influences that culminate in something that has a sort of dreary, yet occasionally whimsically folksy quality to it. This tendency is on full display with the album's opening anthem "Golden Eyed Fox", which has a riff set busy enough to rival the frenetic character of "Beyond The Dark Sun", but packaged in more of a dreamy, Omnium Gatherum-styled template of coldness and featuring a frolicking piano intro that could be likened to a white fox scurrying through a snowy field. Other similarly structured but more mid-paced offerings like "Valhalla" and "Insomnia" echo this Omnium Gatherum tendency, while the husky growls of front man and guitarist Michal Miluski has a slightly deeper character than Wintersun, but possessed of a similarly whispering and frostbitten character, while the clean vocals that chime in at various points are a bit smoother and more airy than the baritone choirs normally employed by typical folk-tinged band of this persuasion.

Nevertheless, there are times where this outfit's more epic, almost power metal-like character pulls things a good bit closer to the feel of this style's 2004 progenitor. It becomes most apparent during the two-song cycle that is "Elements" and "Tale Of Fire", which combines a droning, densely orchestrated fanfare with a serene atmosphere, in the case of the former, with a busy and pomp-steeped cruiser that could have almost passed for a lost track off the Wintersun debut if it had a few more shred-happy guitar solos and some high-pitched power metal shrieks to complement the icy barks and growls. The fast-paced and gallop-happy banger "Last Battle" rides a fairly close second though, and really brings in the Ensiferum brand of folksy goodness while also maintaining the tundra-like atmosphere that is this style's staple. The guitar work and heavy keyboard presence generally drives these songs, but it would be a mistake to discount the outstanding drum performance of Stratovarius' own Rolf Pilve, who rivals Kai Hanto's precession-based mayhem and flawless blast beats and definitely lends a Finnish flair to this Polish outfit. Interestingly enough, the driving flow and melodic contour of "Forest" has a slight Stratovarius character to it at times, while the dense orchestrations that paint over the closer "Dream" occasionally flirt with sounding like something Nightwish might have dabbled in prior exodus of Tarja Turunen.

This is an album that takes all of the better elements of the mid-2000s epic melodic death metal sound and distills them into something that's a bit more accessible to the rank and file who would find the post-s/t output of Wintersun to be excessively long and convoluted. It bears some similarity to Brymir's concurrent 2019 album Wings Of Fire, but with a greater emphasis on atmospheric nuance and less of an aggressive and technical character. It's a consistent offering with no slouches from start to finish, and has a sort of unifying flow to it that lends extremely well to listening all the way through in a storybook fashion rather than skipping around. Think of it as the clever fox that eludes the notice of the great arctic wolves of its domain, taking a course that involves taking down smaller prey and relying upon a more cunning approach to the hunt, rather than gathering the pack and overwhelming a massive elk with overwhelming force. It's about as faithful of an emulation of the signature style of Finland as one might come to expect outside of said nation; so much so that like their similarly named and sounding American counterparts Aether Realm, they may want to include the same disclaimer that they are not actually Finnish.