How you can call Beyond the Dark Sun and Winter Madness the only two good songs, then call a song like Starchild "boring filler crap" is beyond me.

Anyways, personally I think many predictions in this thread are correct. The bad luck Jari's had with this album that caused it take so long to make, which in turn caused it to garner a lot of expectations...well, I don't think it will meet most people's high expectations for it. But I do hope it turns out being a good album on par with the s/t. I wouldn't call myself an avid fan of Wintersun, but I still quite enjoyed the s/t and it would be a pity for their second album to already signal their decline.

On a side note, has anyone else seen this band live? I saw them at Wacken 2006 and had been quite excited to see them, but I found they weren't particularly energetic. Was a bit disappointed.

I was pleasantly surprised with Wintersun back when that album was released, it's like Ensiferum except not crap. I agree that it has somewhat lost it's luster, however. Time will probably not be that great, Jari seems to have gone too far in his megalomania and I wouldn't be surprised if he became the next Timo Tolkki.

I always giggle to myself a little when zeingard comments on something with folk in it.

I'd fall under the group of people who doesn't "get" Wintersun. Sure, I think Jari is a phenominal songwriter and an exceptional musician, but Wintersun's debut failed to strike me in the supernatural awe-inspiring way it struck everyone else. I also feel left out!

If I had to guess, I'd say a good bit of the hype Wintersun recieves is due to the fact that Jari can compose and play music that operates several planes of superiority above Children of Bodom. Where they descended into a pit of mediocrity and bad, Wintersun did the opposite. Fans rightfully dissapointed with the direction Children went, naturally turned and said, "Hey! This is close enough to the same stuff, and it's kickass!"

Time will no doubt be a decent album. I can't imagine Jari NOT putting his heart and soul into anything, and as long as he does the album will be fine. Whether or not it'll have the power to shape planets, ressurect christ, and solve all the world's problems however, is subject to much doubt.

Anyone who doubts Jari Maenpaa, will surely be proved wrong

"Jari Mäenpää" and "crap" cannot be in the same sentence, unless the sentence is "Jari Mäenpää cannot play crap"

Agreed.

Agreed.



Agreed so much, that if I agreed any more I would explode.

I can't wait for Time to be released, I expect it to be excellent as all the album Jari's been involved in have been masterpieces. As for the Wintersun s/t, it gets better and better from beginning to end.

While the expectations are obviously all but unattainable, I do have a lot of faith in Jari. I think "Time" will be a very solid album, most likely on par with "Wintersun".

I don't seem to understand why people who are all about Grind/Brutal Death Metal (Bezerko) want to find the musical value behind Wintersun, then bitch about the album after they fail at that search, as they don't have the sense for anything that is "music". Grind sucks, and Wintersun doesn't. Woo.

I don't get why only Beyond the Dark Sun and Winter Madness would be hyped. Music doesn't have to be absolute guitargrind to be good. Also, if you like the first two, I don't get how you wouldn't like Starchild, of the same vein.

I like almost every song on the album. I wouldn't say that everything Jari makes cannot be bad, as people can always make mistakes. But I believe that Ensiferum's first album, their self-titled debut was pretty much like omfgsodamnawesome, and the others failed to impress me. Wintersun's Wintersun is somewhat like Ensiferum continued, just as great as the former.



Unneccesary acoustic/folk/keyboard sections in folk metal, wow, how dare they. What would cause them to put some interludes/pauses between the huge-ass guitargrind sections to make the music sound less forced, and to make it become music, instead of just pointless grinding which would be folk-influenced thrash/grind. Seriously, what on earth.

Or, if you had half a wit without you, you could sift through both my posts on this forum, not to mention my reviews on this very website and realise that I, for the most part, hate brutal death, tech death and deathgrind.

YOHOHO MR. IDIOTICO.

As long as "Time" is on par with their debut album, I'll be more than happy.

I didn't say technical death or deathgrind, I said grind. Your sig says Grind/Hardcore so I went with that, and most of your reviews of Brutal Death are 80%+, so I couldn't really have known. ^^

I still say that just because a song is slower, it doesn't neccesarily mean it sucks, though.

Actually, you said Grind/Brutal Death Metal, not just "grind."

Now, most of my reviews of brutal death are 80+?

Bloodsoaked (US) - Brutally Butchered "Holy shit! Good brutal death metal!" - 83%
Cryptopsy - None So Vile "Bahahahahahaha… No." - 15%
Cryptopsy - The Unspoken King "OW, MY EARS! Wait, was that... A good section?" - 16%

Those are the only ones that could be considered brutal death. One is 80+, in fact that's the only positive one there and it has a clear exclamation in the title signifying that it is good brutal death metal. Accompanied by the "Holy Shit!" I'd think it's pretty obvious I dislike the genre.

Yes, I love my grind (generally only the more hardcore orientated grind though, deathgrind just doesn't do it for me for the most part), but so what?

Did I say a song sucks because it's slow? Hell no, I'm currently listening to Pentagram and, straight behind my beloved black metal (I'll be back later baby!) it's my favourite genre of music, so your whole ridicule that I have apparently said that only fast=good is completely unfounded. Hmm, now I feel like Candlemass' King of the Grey Islands...

As for Wintersun, I never said I hated them or anything of the sort, I said they are mediocre. Perhaps I'm just too "crude, vulgar and ugly" to get it, perhaps I'm too "unintelligent" or perhaps I'm just some unappreciative dick face, but Wintersun just doesn't do anything for me. All the songs sound dull and far outstay their welcome (which is nothing to do with the pace for your information, Wintersun plays quite fast music...), but it just sounds boring to me. It's good for sure, I'm a big fan of Jari's vocals and the instrumental work is very good, but it's a band that just hasn't clicked with me.

Plus I'm listening to Starchild now and it makes me want to listen to Running Wild, so fuck this, it's time to listen to RUNNING FUCKING WILD!

WELCOME! TO THE TAVERN, IN THE GROVE!

Okay, sorry about everything, I admit I was wrong.

I couldn't agree more. I want to think that "Time" will (or at least in Jari's mind, is supposed to be - he hopes) be better than "Wintersun", but if it's only "just as good", I will be completely satisfied (as I found "Wintersun" to be quite good)...

Man, you are not very good at arguing. This sort of stereotyping is just unbelievable. For one, why can't someone honestly dislike a band? It doesn't mean they like "guitargrind" (whatever the fuck that means). It might just mean the band in question actually isn't any good.



And this, too, you're doing the same thing again. Look at bands like Slough Feg and Skyforger for proof that folk metal doesn't HAVE to equal "unnecessary acoustic/folk/keyboard sections." Yes, a lot of folk metal has those things, but not all of it does, and some of the best folk bands are those that just bust out awesome riffs and rock for 4 minutes.

Wintersun seem decent enough so far, but...



This just screams "bad." Whatever happened to simple pleasures?

No, it screams EPIC!!!

But I understand if people don't like Wintersun.

Virgin Steele and Manilla Road can do epic with two guitarists and a good singer. So can tons of other bands. Such pomp and swagger really isn't necessary.

Well you can have "simple pleasures" all you want, there are loads of bands that you can go search for for that, but what's wrong with someone doing something more and pulling it off right and still have it work.

The artist is the one who decides if it's necessary.
Besides, it may be impressive creating epic atmospheric music with just two guitars and vocals, but making something so excessive work doesn't take any less skill.

Well, my point is that it often does not work. I'll give it a chance, of course, since Jari is such a good songwriter, but it's all too often that such cobbled together Frankensteins of albums come off as excessive, bloated, unfocused.



The artist decides what he wants to do, not what is necessary. If a band wanted to have 5 drummers, it would be unnecessary, but if they wanted to do it, nobody could stop them.

And yeah, I never said it took less skill, just that I preferred bands that didn't just cram in everything they thought was cool.

But hey, nothing is set in stone yet. It could possibly be a great album for all I know. I'm not going to judge.

I think that time will be a great release. I just hope it doesn't take much longer.

While I disagree with the jab at Ensiferum, I will agree that Wintersun tends to lose its appeal. For me to really enjoy the album, I have to listen to it once in awhile instead of a over and over or on a daily basis.

I learned slowly that if I put it down for an extended period of time and then listen to it again at a later date, I really enjoy it. But if I play it again, I don't seem to enjoy it as much.

It's a weird way of going about it, but it works so that I get the biggest bang for my buck.

When a band wants to have 5 drummers, it's necessary to have 5 drummers, not to make good music of course (and thats your point, right?),
but for artistical expression and all.

Yes, more or less that was my point.

I just got done listening to them, and I can safely say that Jari is a Heavy Metal God! How in the Hell can he keep coming up with such great work?

Yeah maybe, if the album ever gets released. I consider it in the same league as the next Vinterland album, it won't get released...ever.

Speaking of Wintersun, I didn't like their debut much. Weird thing is, if I increase the pitch of the album by 1, I actually think it sounds a lot nicer and actually enjoy it.

If Time is ever released, I don't think it will dissapoint Wintersun fans much.

I wasn't too impressed with his first album. Rather unremarkable in every way.

Care to elaborate?

I hated the self-titled at first, but it grew on me. Hardly something I'd consider a perfect album, as it has no real depth or much atmosphere, but it's not something I find offensive by any means.

I expect Time to be a step down unless he decides to incorporate more folky elements in it... but I have a feeling he's going to release something along the lines of a Children of Bodom album.

I rather enjoyed some tracks of off Wintersun's self titled debut but overall it grew thin very quickly. "Winter Madness", despite other opinions, is a great track filled with many memorable melodies and riffs. However, Jari has quite the ability to excessively over layer every one of his compositions - something absolutely impossible to be duplicated live and quite un necessary in the end. His slow songs are rather a boring attempt at sounding epic with no power or feeling (only sounding incredibly like he is trying too hard to fit the label). You do not have to have over 25 synthesized instruments on your keyboard playing at one time in a section to capture atmosphere, this is something Jari does NOT understand.

Jari is a great musician and I have enjoyed his works up to this point but I admit that I am a bit nervous about this album. It's unusual for someone to hype up their own release this much, could he also be nervous about it? It sounds like it will be very busy, too busy? I don't want to analyze music that I haven't yet heard so I will contain my thoughts until either the album is released or it leaks. LOLZ!11

It's odd that you say that [for me], because I actually feel the opposite; I feel like "Wintersun" was full of atmosphere of depth. I really feel a certain way when I listen to the album (well, only if I listen to all of it; if I only listen to a couple of the tracks I don't necessarily get that feeling; "Wintersun" is definately an album that works better as a whole than as individual tracks).



I don't feel like Jari is hyping up his album as much as I think his fans are.....

I've loved the s/t album since the first time I played it. I've been waiting for the follow up since then. I've been eagerly waiting for this release, and I will wait to pass judgment on it until after I hear it. Of course since Jari has yet to release a bad album I don't expect anything less than good.

Knowing how modest and perfectionist Jari is, this album can't be anything but great.

Can someone tell me what this guy has done to deserve the "everything Jari does is great" fanfare? As far as I know, the only things he has done are an Ensiferum album and a Wintersun one, as well as a few obscure side-projects. It's hardly enough for all the applause in this thread.

He's known for being the sole composer (correct me if I'm wrong, I don't know about the Ensiferum albums) on three albums: Ensiferum, Iron and Wintersun, all of which many, many people (not me) consider masterpieces and has yet to produce anything below that standard. He's had a "good run" in the eyes of a lot of people and for now seems infallible.

I believe he only composed and wrote the lyrics for some of the Ensiferum stuff, songs like Lai Lai Hei and Token Of Time, the rest was by Markus (and still is mostly).

You forgot to say:
Add: gayness, drunk faggots
Remove: Riffs, talent, audible music, solos that actually CAN be played live and lyrics that are not completely gay.


And also that statement would be like saying "Put Chris Barnes in Cradle of Filth and they would be br00tal death metal"

I'm looking forward to the new album, and I'm expecting another good album worth the money I spend on it. I've never seen Jari mess up in a bad way, so at worst it will be an average album, and at best it might live up to the fraction of the hype it's received.

I also expect Zeingard to score it as he usually does with his patented -50 points if it's folk metal or in any way related to folk metal scoring technique.