Wintersun - Live at Tuska Festival 2013 (2017)^{Release ID: 3730}

I'm far more of a music listener and a reviewer than a musician and composer. I've been listening to metal music for over a decade now. I've first encountered Wintersun a few years after the release of the long-awaited Time I, and that album I used to think was one of the most epic metal albums I've heard, despite its short "incomplete" length. As I grew older though, I've realized that my true metal heart lies in modern heaviness rather than melodic epicness. I switched to a more mature appealing path for me...

So what does all that mean? It means my enjoyment for Wintersun is still around, but not as much as in the past. This live album, released on the same day as The Forest Seasons, consists of almost the entire Time I album plus a few tracks from their 2004 debut album. Does all this epic diversity still stand out for me well? Let's find out!

The intro of both Time I and Live at Tuska Festival 2013 is the 4-minute "When Time Fades Away". It is an atmospheric Eastern-style instrumental that sounds quite beautiful. The first full song, "Sons of Winter and Stars" is perhaps one of the most epic-sounding songs in all of metal, to guide you through a complex battle of metal and orchestra. At least I used to think about how epic it is, but listening to this now, it still has grand potential, but it's not as put together smoothly as I once thought it was. Still I can't argue with anyone with saying that's the very definition of epic metal. Nowadays, I consider "Land of Snow and Sorrow" my favorite track from Time I with melodic beauty in the riffing and orchestration. It can please metalheads with its swaying melancholy, and the vocals are in full effect especially in a highly memorable chorus.

Finally getting into the songs from the debut, "Winter Madness" once again pushes the boundaries of blackened melodeath that shouldn't be any problem with the heavier metalheads. "Beautiful Death" has the most of the black metal influences here.

The title track of the Time series, "Time" rounds off Time I quite well. Although not as developed in complexity as "Sons of Winter and Stars", this other epic has more stable structure complete with soloing and epic melodies more tolerable for the present-day me. Yeah, I like it more than "Sons of Winter and Stars" today. Then we have the progressive multi-part "Starchild". Although I enjoyed this a lot when I was younger, it now suffers the same problem as Star One's "Starchild" epic; a bit annoying and pompous, and the song ends better than it began. Probably the weakest track here, but still a suitable ending to the show.

Live at Tuska Festival 2013 is a release I don't enjoy as much as I had when I was a young fan of epic metal. The songs from Time I sound quite epic, but they're not that appealing to the more modern/heavy-focused side of me. And this release would've been better if the songs they performed from their debut aren't the weakest ones from there. Still I don't consider any of this a criminal atrocity. This is bombastic symphonic melodeath/power metal for anyone wanting to hear metal at its most epic....

Favorites: "Land of Snow and Sorrow", "Winter Madness", "Time"