Wintersun - Time II (2024)^{Release ID: 54399}

At long last... The time has come... The release of one of the longest-awaited albums, Time II! Recording for the album began as early as 2006 when it was recorded together with Time I with the initial intention of being one whole album. While Time I was released in 2012, we had to wait 12 more years for the arrival of Time II. And during that wait, we got a separate album in The Forest Seasons. Now if Time II came out in 2017 instead of The Forest Seasons, it would've blown me away hard, considering how much I loved epicness in metal back then. With my metal heart aiming for modern heaviness nowadays, I'm no longer the Wintersun fan I was 10 years ago. An album like Time I that was an epic masterpiece back then, I don't think the same today. But I have to seize the moment of checking out this highly anticipated offering, so let's get into it.

So what's great is the shredding, vocals, and drums. The epicness that comes from the soloing and melodies is top-notch. The neoclassical soloing is actually quite memorable, and I like the Oriental folk/symphonic orchestration. There's barely any difference in the vocals of Jari Mäenpää in the different times each section is recording, that's how fresh in both the cleans and screams. On the other hand, the production is a bit too much. The otherwise nice drumming ends up messy. The bass can barely be heard. There is a lack of actual metal riffing. And the orchestration is too pompous, which again I would've loved to bits when I was younger, but now, NAH.

"Fields of Snow" is a nice promising start. A pleasant intro filled with Eastern folk music. The only problem is, it goes on for 4 minutes, just like the intro for Time I. If it was shortened to half its length, I would like it more. My favorite song of the album is "The Way of the Fire", the first real song. It's been played live since just a year before Time I even came out, so it's one of the most anticipated songs here. The melody and the drums have made me smile, as if I was an epic metal-loving teen all over again. Lots of excellent soloing, drumming, and melody to headbanging. The epic power shines the most in the chorus with the clean/harsh vocal dynamics that also appear in various other places. This is probably my newfound favorite 10+ minute epic by Wintersun, a glorious journey all the way up to the final orchestral strum.

"One with the Shadows" can be considered the "Land of Snow and Sorrow" of Time II, a short mid-tempo ballad. I really enjoy the soloing, which barely happened in the previous two albums. The leads and the clean/harsh vocal dynamics level things up as always. Truly a 6-minute banger, keep that in mind before the longer epics that will come shortly. "Ominous Clouds" is a better instrumental than the other one. First off, it's only 2 minutes long, the way an interlude should be. Second, the Eastern folk synths and strings have some nice guitar fiddling on top, all for smooth atmosphere.

The final two epics start with "Storm", which reminds me a lot of The Forest Seasons' "Eternal Darkness" with its blackened instrumentation. That definitely makes a highlight, but the problem is, the 3-minute flute outro with sounds of rain and thunder is too overlong. And it segues to "Silver Leaves" which has a 3-minute flute INTRO. The song itself is centered around flute and orchestration with the guitars and drums being more of an afterthought. Again, would the younger me love this? YES. Would I love it now? NO.

I would fully enjoy this album if they could've shortened the longer songs a bit and tone down some orchestration. Time II is pretty great, yet it should've had a few kinks to make it more memorable. Not worth a lot of revisiting, but I'm quite curious about a planned 4-album series and what Jari Mäenpää can do with 5 albums worth of demos....

Favorites: "The Way of the Fire", "One With the Shadows", "Storm"