This is the culmination of surely one of the most ridiculous stories in music of all time. Over nearly twenty years, Wintersun mastermind Jari Maenpaa has continued to promise to create the most elaborate melodic black metal album of all time. To give you an idea of how long this journey has been going on for, the initial delay to Time I was announced on message boards. You read that right.
Wintersun burst into life with their mesmerising debut Winter Madness, a frostbitten beauty of a record that captured the haunting majesty of the cold, unforgiving northern reaches that Jari calls home. Unfortunately, after this, he seemed to come to believe that he was some sort of kvlt messiah. He promised Time, an ambitious concept album said to be so elaborate that the sheer scope of it seemed impossible. After six years of waiting and sparse updates, the record got split into two parts and Time I was released, to admittedly great reception, in 2012. The fact it’s over a decade later for part 2 says one of two things. That Jari is a perfectionist the likes of which black metal has never seen, or that he just needed to raise more money because he definitely needs that sauna for creative and musical reasons, nothing else.
So, what went on over the last decade? What majestic, life changing movements await you once you press play? Well, the first track is a four minute long instrumental inspired by japanese folk music, which, while admittedly incredibly relaxing and beautifully produced, doesn’t scream black metal epic at you. This isn’t a new thing for Wintersun, as 2017’s The Forest Seasons and Time I both experimented with this element of sound but it’s not exactly the album opener you expect, though maybe that’s the point.
Thankfully, when “The Way Of Fire” bursts into life after its jaunty opening, things get a bit more business as usual. A freezing maelstrom of blastbeats and riffs that would scrap the flesh off a bear, it’s a ten minute epic that admittedly, hits the nail on the head of what the band have promised, best listened to through a good pair of headphones so you can truly appreciate the work that has gone into the soundscapes and production. Jari has a voice made for this, it has to be said, sounding like a warrior leading his troops into battle wearing nothing but furs and wielding naught but an axe he stole off someone who tried to kill him. It’s pretty rousing, in a way that makes you want to seek out the blood of your enemies kind of way. It does drag on a little in just over ten minutes however. “One With The Shadows” is a shorter, more condensed track thankfully, though it still rocks up at over six minutes. It’s more of the same, but subtly different. Again, an enjoyable track that gets the adrenaline pumping and it makes that church down the road seem quite flammable, but little in the way of sticking power.
The remainder of the tracks all fit into the mould that Wintersun have carved for themselves. They’ve made a genre of music that famously sounds like it was recorded in your gran’s biscuit tin into something quite ethereal. You find yourself swept away and it would be a shame to spoil what happens and the journey taken in these tracks for those who’ve sat and waited with baited breath for so long. Suffice to say, it isn’t for everyone, this is a niche within a niche and you can already hear the purists crying foul. Jari is a man not without his flaws but you can’t say that he is anything less than fully committed and dedicated to bringing his vision to life.
It’s just at times, that vision is a little overblown. Will the casual, non-expensive headphone wearing music fan be able to listen to this as it was intended to be listened to? Will they pick up all of the minute details, the flourishes and the production bells and whistles? It’s doubtful and will undermine the album for some. There may also be talk of “this is what we waited over a decade for?” which again, is valid, but the vast majority of us are not musicians. We are not producers and we do not have the knowledge and skills that Jari has. It is more valid to suggest that because essentially, Wintersun is a passion project, that Jari can do what he wants and take as long as he needs. The fact it got a release at all shows that above all else and aside from what everyone else thinks, that he is happy with it.