MUSIC REVIEW: Wintersun - “Time II”
For those of you who haven’t been following along with Wintersun’s releases over the past decade+ and their associated (and often undeserved) drama, you would know that they released a critically acclaimed album called “Time I” back in 2012, with a promise that the second half of it would be released shortly thereafter. Coming to be known as Finland’s “Chinese Democracy,” people were genuinely thinking that bassist Jukkis Koskinen’s (Nightwish) announcement of the release date for “Time II” was a joke when he first said that it would be coming out this year. It was indeed no joke though, as “Time II” will be released at long last on August 30th, 2024, via Nuclear Blast Records once more. Naturally, I’m amongst the people who have been waiting for this release for 12 years, so I had to check it out ASAP…
Check out my interview with Jukkis from when “The Forest Seasons” was released here!
In case you’re new here, I like to use this first paragraph to give a general personal history on the artist, so if you’d like to compare your favorites to mine to see how comparable our tastes are, this next paragraph is for you! After all, music is subjective! So, with that in mind, feel free to skip down to the next paragraph if you’re not interested in my personal history with Wintersun.
Wintersun fans are generally divided between the fans of the guitar-driven, thrashier material and the melodic material (unless, of course, they enjoy both). I’m very clearly one of the latter, who prefers the more melodic music to the thrashier side of their sound, meaning their debut album didn’t do it for me (as impressive as the guitar work is), but I loved every second of “Time I.” When it comes to “The Forest Seasons,” I didn’t really feel the ‘seasonal’ vibe that the album promised, meaning that the only song I really enjoyed was “Winter.” So with that in mind, let’s have a look at “Time II.”
The part two of the “Time” series begins with another intro track, “Fields of Snow,” which immediately shows off the Japanese inspiration again through the use of their traditional instruments, continuing to transport the listener into a magical musical realm. It’s a gorgeous opening track, making good use of its over-4-minutes runtime.
“The Way of the Fire” is by far the thrashiest song on the album, despite its deceptively gentle starting moments, with a heavy forward drive of blast-beats, while keeping a lot of the melodies and layers moving. A lot of the controversy over how long it took this album to come out was related to Jari Mäenpää’s desire to get the perfect mix on the astounding number of instrumental (and vocal) layers the album has and you can get a taste of this “The Way of the Fire,” where the more deeply you listen, the more you notice. The lyrics reflect back on “Fields of Snow” as well and the guitar soloing is spectacular, ever-changing and evolving as the song progresses. I could probably listen to this song a hundred times and get more from it each time, but suffice to say that there’s some neoclassical keyboarding in there, a lot of atmospheric backing sounds, and more of those gorgeous Japanese instruments. While at first I was a bit iffy about all of the blast-beats, on the whole this song won me over quite quickly because of the instrumentality. Oh, also worth mentioning is that the vocal sound is almost identical to that of “Time I,” albeit with indeed a better mix.
Things slow down a bit when “One with the Shadows” starts, though the guitar parts remain quite showy (and why not? If you’ve got it, flaunt it!). There’s a hint of the more extreme style when the vocals start, but this is a pretty versatile track that balances between a gentle rhythm and quick soloing. The vocals are dramatic, with their own multiple layers, and suit the music, which seems to tell a story as it progresses. I enjoy the different sounds Jari has, with the grungy shouting vocals, the full growls, and the more melodic singing as well.
Then, “Ominous Clouds” is a storied instrumental song that’s entirely led by spectacular guitars and soft ambient backing music, making for a well-needed calm before the two long onslaughts to follow. It’s quite sensible that “Ominous Clouds” leads straight into “Storm,” which begins with a rather mournful guitar line on top of the sounds of rain (this is a less wintry album than “Time I,” certainly), before it picks up after a minute or so. Guitar lines dance up and down overtop heavy drums, while the backing instrumentals add texture and bombast. I also appreciate that, despite the growling style, it’s not particularly hard to understand what Jari’s singing (until he starts screeching, of course). Remember those three vocal styles I mentioned before? They all get used almost all at once in “Storm,” but it’s not as messy as you might think; in fact, it works really well to create a lot of vocal intensity. Dress this up with some solid soloing for a while, as the storm picks up in the backing music as well, with thunder dressing up the intensity. One might argue that this song is pretty chaotic, but considering it’s called “Storm,” I think that’s exactly the intent. After 7 minutes, it calms abruptly while thunder continues to roll. From there, the guitar soloing takes over, leading to a silence with only thunder that slowly moves into a softer, more mystical/magical ambience where the Japanese influence slips back in.
Back in the day, I do recall Wintersun including some of the tracks from “Time II” in their live sets, which immediately explained why “Silver Leaves” felt familiar to me. This one continues with the strong Japanese feel from right where “Storm” leaves off, seamlessly flowing onwards in a progressive, folky manner. Clean vocals take the lead, still feeling like the calm that follows the storm, perhaps as the leaves settle? The thrash has worked its way out of the music now, leaving this to be entirely melodic. “Silver Leaves” was an easy highlight for me, not just because it’s the least thrashy song, nor because I’ve heard it before, but because it has the strongest combination of guitar work, varied vocal styles, Japanese instruments, and incredible atmosphere, feeling like a fantasy adventure that’s coming to a peaceful close. After the music fades, there is a long outro of just waves on the shore, which lasts for a minute or so.
So, ultimately, the strongest initial response I had to this release was, “yup, that sounds like a continuation of ‘Time I,’ definitely.” It follows a similar pattern musically (intro—long song—shorter song—instrumental breather—long song; “Time II” just adds another long song on the end of that), the oriental influences are in-keeping with that of its predecessor, the vocal style is exactly the same, and the guitar work remains exceptional. On first listen, I admit to being a bit bored, just because the album was more or less exactly what I expected it to be, no surprises. However, already by the second listen-through, I had to start appreciating all the details and the improved mix. While I still think the average person won’t need the level of detail Jari wanted for this album, it is still notably better than “Time I” mix-wise and the musicianship is still as good as it was back in 2012, so there’s nothing to turn one’s nose up at by any means.
This leads me to wonder though… if this album has been recorded ages ago and been worked on for this long, what is the band going to do next? Where do they go from here? This two-part release is finally with us, so what’s the next great inspiration? Where will the sound evolve, if at all? Color me curious, if nothing else. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go listen to this album about a hundred more times!
Tracklist
Fields of Snow
The Way of the Fire
One with the Shadows
Ominous Clouds
Storm
Silver Leaves
Enjoy Bear’s writing? Consider joining her mailing list to keep up-to-date!
