Wintersun’s long-awaited sequel to Time I is finally out, and it’s more than worth the wait.
What makes this album so interesting is that it feels like it started where its predecessor left off. It makes some nods towards Time I while still doing its own thing and more. Like Time I, it has a short instrumental intro, some long, very ambitious tracks and shorter ones. The songs function as sequels to each other, so they re-use similar melodies and musical accompaniment. It could feel repetitive, but it never does, thanks to the album’s incredible songwriting craft as we will see.
This album’s intro, “Fields of Snow”, really makes you think of snow, with its soft violins and cold, delicate synths, and its faint choir vocalizations in the background. Now, the longer tracks. They are yet again a strange, hard to describe mix of folk, power, progressive, symphonic and black metal. “The Way of the Fire” starts with acoustic guitars, like a folk song, before adding heavy electric guitars and drums, snarling black metal shrieks and a catchy, soaring chorus with Jari Mäenpää’s powerful and deep voice. The contrast between his vocals, the fact he can go from such high screams to such low-pitched, but still powerful singing, is truly impressive. The song is 10 minute-long, but its energy and catchiness make its length really fly by, there’s never a dull moment on it.
By comparison, “One With the Shadows” is shorter, but uses similar energetic, bombastic riff that feels like echoes of the previous track, and a similar mix of shrieks and gritty singing. It reminds me of Dimmu Borgir or Enslaved at times, but still feels completely different. The instrumental interlude “Ominous Clouds” is a mix of guitars and nature sounds, which once again seem to follow the melody of the previous track, and flow into the next one, “Storm”. That one starts with an acoustic intro, before bursting into a mix of heavy guitars and choirs, this time sounding like a cross between Nightwish and Cradle of Filth, but not really. It has fast, powerful verses with snarly black metal vocals, belted high notes on the chorus, and some relentless energy. It’s a storm of crazy violins and guitars.
However, the true highlight of the album, the longest and most creative track, is the last one, “Silver Leaves”. The erhu (or Chinese fiddle, if you will) and the bells that were used to great effect at the end of “Storm” are now among the main instruments, and wow, do they really convey the song’s atmosphere. The song’s gorgeously melancholic melody, its poetic and wistful lyrics, Jari’s sad singing and elongated notes, the overall powerful, epic feel, truly make it sound like a metal version of a Chinese folk song. Sung in English and Finnish, but whatever. Just close your eyes and imagine a trip through the cold, snowy mountains of Northern China. It’s a truly one-of-a-kind track, because there are so few songs that could create such a great atmosphere, give you so many emotions, and because from either Wintersun or any similar metal band, it seems so unexpected, and I don’t think other artists could do it as well as they did here.
It was worth waiting 12 years just to hear “Silver Leaves”. If Time I is the pretty good beginning of a story, Time II is its middle part where it gets truly awesome, and its amazing climax and ending. This is the best way they could have followed that album, the best thing they could have done with its set of sounds and ideas. It’s a must-hear if you want to hear to hear the sequel to Time I, or if you want to hear a great blackened power/folk metal album with amazing creativity and really good music.
Pre-Order Time II here: https://wintersun.bfan.link/time-ii.ema
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