Wintersun

Given the 20 years of anticipation, disappointment, controversy, ridiculous statements and antics that followed Jari Mäenpää's departure from Ensiferum and the subsequent release of this album here, it's pretty fascinating to turn the clock back and take a look at where it all started. Before Time I, before the sauna, before that dreadful symphonic djent single he dropped this year, we just had this album - pretty much the only real reason the metal world ever cared about Jari's career post-Ensiferum (i.e: this project.) In this regard it was definitely a simpler time, and honestly that is reflected in the music here. Looking back at how relatively simple the presentation of this album is as compared to the bloated disasters that followed it, it's almost stunning - this album very much reflects its creator, and specifically a time before Jari's head was 100% up his own arsehole. This is very clearly one man's labour of love (which he really wanted you to know that judging by the cover - mate we all know it's you behind this album) and it's refreshingly easy to talk about, pick apart, and highlight its obvious strengths and severe shortcomings. Rarely is an album so obviously, ridiculously and fundamentally flawed whilst also showcasing genuine talent and successful applications of it, especially one this professionally presented and high profile.

I said that this album is simple, and next to the processed, synth-saturated mess that was Time I it absolutely is - but it's hardly a stripped-down affair. Coated in a somewhat glossy and clear sound that still has the necessary bite and heft to it, what is on display on this album is basically classic Children of Bodom-style melodic death metal with a strong epic bent. There's lots of melody to the riffs of course, both of the melancholic and triumphant varieties, with plenty of tasteful and suitably emotive leads that still manage to throw restraint out of the window. This is all packed into songs that bristle with power metal-esque triumph and energy when the music speeds up, and mournful melancholy when it slows down, often accented tastefully and effectively with symphonic synths to suit the mood. Top this off with a dynamic, laser-accurate but still human drum performance from Kai Hahto (it's not just all blasting and double bass; he chucks in tons of fills and knows when to let up to let the songs breathe, as well as how best to make songs flow and release tension) along with Jari delivering a good set of raspy growls across the album and genuinely strong clean singing to bolster the more epic moments, and you have a base sound that from top to bottom is honestly great. There's clearly the material necessary to make a great album here; the production is excellent, it has strong and creative guitar and rhythm work throughout, as well as captivating vocals and lyrics. Given all of this, this album's failure is all the more frustrating and rests entirely on how these songs and the album as a whole is built out from these base elements.

As stated, this is ultimately entirely the work of Jari - the drums were performed by Kai of course, but Jari recorded literally all other instruments, produced it, and clearly drove the creative process of this from start to finish. This is important to note as this album's overall sound and quality thus rests on his ability as a musician and songwriter; strengths, flaws and all. As such, it is a very naked and shining example of what he excels at and what he fails miserably at, as this is basically his singular vision with little outside influence. And it's clear that the one thing he does exceptionally well is faster, shorter songs that get to the point and don't lean too hard into trying to be epic. This describes the first two songs on the album, 'Beyond the Dark Sun' and 'Winter Madness', which are the only two truly good songs here. They waste no time in delivering aggressive riffs and zooming leads with a slight epic flare, alongside being crammed with hooks in their instrumentation and vocals, making for a truly fantastic, memorable and thrilling listen. They also waste no time in doing all that they need to and no more, as well as not dragging on; the fact they're also the two shortest and consistently speedy songs on the album is very much not a coincidence.

The remaining 47 or so minutes of this album are dedicated to its increasingly lengthy songs with a greater focus on being epic and booming, and fast or slow these remaining 6 tracks are all ultimately failures, because they simply go on for far too long and introduce unnecessary elements that harm more than help, which is extremely damning as this makes up the vast majority of this album. It's not as if some of Jari's strengths totally disappear in this case either, because the fast songs of this bunch ('Battle Against Time', 'Starchild' and 'Beautiful Death') are clearly the ones with the most potential. They still feature great performances all around from the guitars and drums to the vocals and keys, but they're all several minutes longer than they need to be and feature extraneous ideas that nullify their impact and atmosphere, leading to a series of tracks that completely wear out their welcome and become more tiresome than anything. Jari might excel with this sound when things speed up but he clearly doesn't have the vision needed to make 7+ minute songs that justify their length and stay fresh throughout. They definitely start strong and immediately build up that epic atmosphere Jari is going for, but as they soar past the 4 minute mark and bloat outwards they just start to wear thin and fizzle out into nothing, ultimately.

This same issue carries over to the slower songs ('Sleeping Stars', 'Death and the Healing', 'Sadness and Hate') which are much direr affairs than the fast songs, because they are marred also by the second thing Jari fails at: making slow burning, atmospheric songs in this style. He simply doesn't have the songwriting chops to make these songs work at all, being way too boring from top to bottom to even conjure an atmosphere and really start cooking, amounting to nothing more than a mess of unrelated ideas. They do still have some interesting riffs, leads, keys and vocal performances but they *drag* so hard in how they're paced and woven together that they have very little impact - 'Sleeping Stars' is definitely the worst offender and easily the worst song on the album, with almost nothing going for it at all. The other two fare a bit better for sure due to having more captivating ideas put into them, but they're still total slogs - even cool bits like 'Death and the Healing's big sung choruses repeat far more than they should, whilst the neat synth work and some of the riffs in 'Sadness and Hate' get totally lost in the haze of its crushing 10 minute length and boring progression. The overly long fast songs are tragically flawed and tiresome, but the slow ones have this lethal double weakness that makes them borderline instant skips, and when they're all put together it makes for an absolutely soul-sucking listening experience. Even putting it on in the background as I am whilst writing this and not paying too much attention to it still makes for a tedious and draining 54 minutes.

Of course, what really amplifies this is one of this album's most infamous aspects - the track order and pacing. This album has, no hyperbole, possibly the worst track ordering I've ever seen on a high-profile metal release, not just because it doesn't work at all but also because the rationale behind it is at once so hilariously simplistic, obvious (obviously flawed at that) and just plain stupid that I'm staggered Jari thought it would work. These songs are, with no regard for their pacing, arranged from shortest to longest - which is not something you see very often and with good reason. The idea I suppose is for the album to progressively grow in scope as it swells and builds from its 2 minute opener to its 10 minute finale, but that is obviously not how it went here because it's just not how music works. Long songs aren't inherently epic, they're just long, and without the songwriting chops to pull them off (chops Jari obviously lacks) they can't keep up that atmosphere (in the case of the fast songs) or even really start to build one (in the case of the slow songs.) The end result of this decision is that it makes every passing minute and every passing track ram home how much of a bloated mess the album is becoming, and how much Jari is letting his reach exceed his grasp. It also really just makes no sense: I see no reason why the last three songs on this album - two huge, epic, melodic but punishingly bloated barnstormers followed by the stupidly long clunker of a closer - should be arranged as they are. You're really just begging for the album to end by the time you get to the closer, and that's not even necessarily entirely on the songs that preceded it either, because with an altered track order you'd have an album that's still very flawed but not nearly as much of a pain to listen to.

This has to be one of the most frustrating albums in the history of metal. It is one of the barest, most prominent examples of wasted musical potential I can think of, clearly displaying a level of base talent well above the norm that is nevertheless totally squandered on an album with very basic, fundamental failings in the way it is ultimately built. It also clearly displays how well things go when they fall into place (the first two songs) and what happens when they don't (everything past that point) in a manner resembling a split personality. I think what really adds to this sense of frustration though is that Jari would never capitalise on this. He would never take this sound and fix the flaws on display here to deliver that truly great album he is (or was, at this point) capable of making. Instead we just got the absolutely disappointing, miserable and laughable trainwreck that has been his career since then, as his characteristically slow pace when it comes to making music combined with his supposed perfectionism and delusions of grandeur would be his undoing - maybe not on a financial level but absolutely on an artistic level. Given the shift in sound towards far longer, more bloated territory on subsequent albums (and an obsession with production despite the fact his next two albums sound worse than this one) shows us that he learnt nothing and just got worse, as if he doesn't understand his own craft at all. Hell, he rereleased this album several years ago and it actually did have an altered track order... because he swapped the positions of the first two tracks and added an intro track. Literally the only part of this album that wasn't wrong, he actually made worse. 'Beyond the Dark Sun' is so clearly meant to be the opening salvo of the album that it's in the way it's written, and no pointless, overly long ambient intro will disguise that fact. This whole album is from start to finish the wasted potential of a man that thinks he is far greater than he really is, but also one who had a genuine talent that he was too egotistical and delusional to ever nurture such that maybe one day he would live up to that supposed greatness. In a word: disappointing.

What a fucking clown. I guess it's fitting his legacy rests on an album as frustrating and obviously flawed as he is; this thing is just a waste of a Necrolord cover.