Phonebook Eater 8/10

A world of pain and loss, but triumph will somehow take shape.

Moonsorrow's final, great album so far is 'V: Havitetty', the most ambitious, mature, and complex albums by the band, and that is to say a lot, being followed by a masterpiece of intricacy such as the epic 'Verisakeet': But the band push their boundaries even further, and create something that a listener would never forget.

This is an album of details. Details are the elements that build 'Havitetty'; it's like creating a castle not with immense milestones but with small pieces of rocks that together nevertheless make an incredibly solid effort. And it is a castle that is quite hard to destroy. It's a solid, almost hour long album, where ambition is the first word that comes to mind. More synthesizers, even more Folk elements incorporated; there is in the slower, quieter moments, even some Prog Rock sparks. But Black Metal is still the core of Moonsorrow's music: it's not a cerebral, polished BM like it was in 'Verisakeet', but it is a raw, abrasive one reminiscent of an earlier period for the band.

The element that attracted much more ambitious metalheads to this release (and perhaps distanced the ones who like their metal played safe) is the fact that this is a two song affair, both of them reaching nearly the half-hour length. The first one, 'Jaasta Syntynyt/ Varjojen Virta', more melancholic, sad, hopeless, but of an amazing beauty especially in the first seven minutes or so, where atmospheres a-la-Pink Floyd take place, before exploding into a bunch of different, unique, and carefully arranged Black Metal riffs (with shrieked vocals) that take turns in hopping up in front of the listener. With lyrics concerning the death of our world, due to stupidity of man ( immense frustration is felt in the poetry of lyricist), and the preparation to a war that will give nothing but further loss to us. But if the first track is resigned and helpless, 'Tuleen Ajettu Ma' is the revenge, the anger, the hope. Starting almost right off with heavy riffs, it has in the core of the song slower passages. The feeling here is more triumphant, more epic almost. The hooks thus are even more memorable, and often even hauntingly gorgeous, like in the last, final minutes of music. Both of the tracks wonderfully complement one another, and together create an album that couldn't have possibly felt more rounded and complete.

It won't be an easy listen for many people because of it's highly ambitious nature, in terms of structure but also of the music itself. Although not as seminal as previous Moonsorrow works, 'V: Havitetty' is an album that will always be regarded as one of the finest, most interesting and successful achievements of Folk Metal

Phonebook Eater 9/10

Folk Metal's greatest achievement so far, where the word epic acquires a new meaning.

Moonsorrow's masterpiece "Kivenkataja" ended up being the tip of the iceberg: the follow up to that album is "Verisakeet", an album that is just as haunting and well done, although the two are completely two different beasts. But it is definite now that Moonsorrow are one of the best cult Metal bands of all time, thanks mostly to these two landmark achievements, and have not, so far, released an album that was less than really good.

Like it was mentioned, "Verisakeet" is completely different than "Kivenkantaja": the songs are significantly longer, less in quantity, richer in instrumentation, and boast beautiful production and polished sound. There is a more progressive approach in structuring these long winded, complex and diverse songs, where there is an even larger use of exotic, Nordic instrumentation. All of the instruments(flutes, acoustic guitars, flutes, or synthesizers) individually have a prominent place, somewhere here, in this more than an hour long experience. But there is also a significant amount of blast beats and traditional Black Metal here, and a certain passage can go on for several minutes without there being any Folk elements. Nevertheless, this is compensated by the moments in which these Folk elements are present, and they become absolutely essential for that particular passage. There are also, in the beginning and end of each song, some nice nature recordings: this last element gives the impression that legends, with the passing of time, fade in and fade out, but nature remains the same.

Compared to other Moonsorrow albums, "Verisakeet" is the one in which there are more nature themes; it is the most earthly LP of the band, still somewhat focused on battles, but more emotions, such as fear, are heavily connected with the lyrics, in a time before or after a tragic war. If "Karhunkynsi" narrates the pre-battle and how it is not wanted by the people fighting it, "Haaska" is about the devastating aftermath, describing the bleak battlefield, and how futile the event was. "Pimea" is the most pessimistic track, depicting a dying world, another typical latter Moonsorrow theme. The final words that to me are interesting in this album are the ones sung in the intimate "Kaiku", a brief elegy of forefathers.

Musically, each one of these songs is amazingly done, starting from the huge opener, the fourteen minute epic; possibly the heaviest, more Black Metal driven song, but it has massive riffs which reoccur in a beautifully studied way throughout the track, thanks also to great production and musicianship. The second track is less accessible but almost as high of a level and just as long, with more additional instrumentation ( the acoustic guitar gives the main hook for the entire song), more complex, more triumphant, but still of supremely high quality. "Pimea" is still another very long and intricate listen as a whole, with the glossy keyboards giving a strong addition to some melodies, but it has a handful of quite beautiful Folkloric moments, as well as haunting hooks played with either guitars or exotic instruments. "Jotunheim" mixes a huge amount of sounds together, as well as another handful of successful riffs, and amazing musicianship. What differs in this track is that it has a more climactic nature, but also it boasts the most emotionally challenging riffs of the album, them being very desolate sounding. When the final moments of this track, consisting of the routined nature recordings, blend in with the starting moments of "Kaiku", the final track, it is obvious that this amazing journey is coming to an end: this last track is a melancholically campfire-set acoustic jam between an intimate chorus of vocals and acoustic guitar.

"Verisakeet" is possibly the most complete and successful Moonsorrow release; it's possibly also the greatest, most important Folk Metal of all time. With more and more years increasing the album's age, it's quite possibly going to become a Metal classic. For now, this remains stuck in a somewhat cult status, but that doesn't diminish its quality one bit.

Phonebook Eater 9/10

"Kivenkataja", for it's beautiful profoundness, should be considered a landmark Metal album of the new millennium.

Moonsorrow are one of the greatest Metal bands of the new millennium and have proved to be so with several albums, one of them is the masterpiece “Kivenkataja”, the third album, and the first album that is part of a trilogy of excellent works (the second one would be 2005’s “Verisakeet” and the final chapter 2007’s “V: Havitetty”.) This 2003 release proves how Moonsorrow in two years have shown a great difference in songwriting skills, structuring songs and arranging them: “Kivenkataja” indeed is a 100% Moonsorrow album that shows all of the band’s essential and best characteristics.

On one side, the style isn’t different: we’re talking about the usual, Pagan Black Metal/ Folk Metal influence here. But it’s so much more complex, profound and epic than the previous two releases, (beating even the wonderful “Voimasta Ja Kunniasta”) due to it’s superior instrumentation, more progressive influences, and overall perfected songwriting skills. All this together makes up something more than just great album: “Kivenkataja” rightfully should be considered a landmark Metal LP of it’s era, because of it’s uniqueness, richness, and especially, it’s haunting and evocative nature. Sure, Folkish instruments like the Jew Harp, accordion, flutes and many others were present in previous albums, however here, they have a major, essential role, and dominate completely some of the passages here, creating a well balanced equilibrium between the lush Folk moments and Black Metal influenced ones, which still have melodies driven by traditional Scandinavian canons. The Lyrics, being this Pagan Metal, although having pretty much the same themes as the first two albums, this time around are proposed and written in a much more poetic and vivid way: instead of focusing on battles and warriors, there is more detailed descriptions of nature, like in the opening track “Rauniolla”. The tone is more the one of a lonely, forgotten bard of the North, instead perhaps of a drunk one from a noble palace telling hackneyed stories of warriors and battles fought. It basically feels more of a realistic point of view.

The album starts off with the thirteen minute epic “Rauniolla”, quite possibly the best thing Moonsorrow has ever created: the melodies are, instead of being triumphant and full of testosterone, melancholic, a little resigned, solemn. Structured almost as a mini-suite, it features extremely diverse moments, from heavy riffs to beautifully evocative Folkloric ones. “Jumalten Kaupunki”, the second track, is heavier, with less atmospheric moments, and with a more triumphant tone, however still maintaining an impressive level of complexity and depth. The following track is yet another sort of mini, ten minute suite, using however completely different formulas from the ones used in the previous two tracks, giving the structure of the overall album a great flow so far. The title track is more of a traditional Folk Metal track, more ballzy and in-your-face, but it also shows explicit Prog Metal influences especially in the frequent rhythm changes; “Tuulen Tytar” is a mostly instrumental piece, half calm, half distorted and loud. It certainly is the odd one out of these six tracks, and gives yet again another touch of variety in the sound. The album closes with the short but gorgeously crafted “Maktan Lopussa”, a sad, beautiful, and very surprising song on behalf of Moonsorrow.

“Kivenkataja” has an amazing set of songs that together make one, solid and consistent album, despite the great amount of changes that distinguish one song from the other. One of the culminating peaks of Folk Metal music, a perfect model for all of the bands that are minimally interested in the genre.

Phonebook Eater 6/10

"Suden Uni" although feeling like a collection of drinking songs, is a fun and consistent listen.

“Suden Uni” is legendary Finnish act Moonsorrow’s debut album, which will be shortly followed that same year by a much more well developed album, “Voimasta Ja Kunniasta”, one of the most solid releases of the band’s discography. In fact this album does not stand at the same level as the sophomore LP, however, it is proof that Moonsorrow have taken a further step ahead from the previous demos, towards the path of maturity.

Moonsorrow adapt a cleaner production for their full length, compared to the rawness of the EPs/Demos, and start to incorporate a lot more Nordic Folk influenced melodies in their music, as well as exotic instruments like the accordion and the famous jaw harp, but also several keyboards are used. But compared to future albums these folkish instruments are used in a much more subtle way, and serve the sole purpose to enrich the sound; they don’t play a particularly important role within a song. This said, it’s easy to imagine how much less atmospheric and more straight-forward this LP is, again compared to the complexity of future Moonsorrow albums, thus more riff driven and melodic.

“Sudden Uni” means “A Wolf’s Dream” in Finnish: by only the title, you can tell what Mooonsorrow’s lyrics deal with, and, if you’re familiar with the band, it will be very easy to guess the main themes of the album: Viking./Nordic wars, proud warriors, Gods, but also normal people and their sense of honor. the first track is probably the one that is the oddest of all, seemingly coming from a completely different style: “Son of the God Of Thunder” (English translation) is about a young, teenage God who gets expelled by his father from the clouds, because of his futile and reckless behavior. Other than that, the lyrics deal with the above mentioned themes in a casual way, without being particularly evocative.

Because of it’s straight-forwardness, “Suden Uni” in some points seems to be a collection of drinking songs, instead of profound, epic poems of music. This impression obviously does not occur in every song: for example, in the eleven minute “1065: Time”, there are some good doses of epicness in the songwriting and the structure of the song is fantastic, which includes also more ambient friendly passages, mostly in the first few minutes. But the rest of the songs offer little variation, and some are not at all as memorable as they should be: “As Eternal” and “Son Of The God Of Thunder” come a little close to annoy me, however, standing in the middle of them (according to the tracklist) is “Pakanavedet II”, much more accessible and interesting, thanks to the massive presence of the Jew Harp and fun, heavy rhythms. . “Home Of the Wind…” is a little too simple and banal for my taste, but it still has interesting arrangements overall.

“Suden Uni” can be a fun listen for sure, and even if some melodies come a little too close to being corny and clichéd, it’s still a solidly structured release for Moonsorrow, an album that is the natural predecessor of “Voimasta Ja Kunniasta”, which uses a more complex and solid formula.

Phonebook Eater 8/10

"Voimasta" is a perfectly balanced interconnection between the Viking muscles and the guiding hand of Nordic Folklore.

The (possibly) greatest Finnish band of all time, Moonsorrow, in 2001 were able to release two albums: the first one was “Suden Uni”, the second one, “Voimasta Ja Kunniasta”. The latter is possibly the most mature one and the first album by the band that is immensely successful in terms of quality: although maybe not the most recognized and famous release of these Folk Metallers, it is definitely one that opened the path to all of the following Moonsorrow albums and all the other bands that followed them.

Folk Metal’s basics are all down here in an incredibly precise way: here we have the epic feel and melodies of the rough guitars, the Black Metal shrieks, the additional, folkloristic instrumentation (flutes and accordion mostly), the atmospheric synths, and the straddling rhythms. So many Folk Metal bands have used only a portion of these characteristics, but most of the time, the best result will occur if all of these elements are properly incorporated. The songs themselves are structured in a very thought-provoking way, because of the shifting tempos and passages ( from a folkloristic one to a harsh, black Metal burst, enlightened moments later by elaborate, acoustic instrumentation).

The spirit of all Moonsorrow albums is here found in great abundance: the Northern lands, the Vikings, the battles, the Gods. In “Voimasta Ja Kunniasta” there seems to be a more frequent and specific theme of battles, plunders of villages, pride and honor of warriors. “Aurinko Ja Kuu” is however the odd one: its an interesting description of a man who roams in the woods without ever encountering men, and that sleeps in the beds of bears. In 50 minutes of length, “Voimasta” manages to stay quite consistent, and at the same time, the songs have enough variation one another to have a fluent flow. Nearly each one of these six songs can be considered a highlight: “Sankarihauta” and “Kylan Paasa” are generally more muscular, raw, and harsh songs, which still do not lack of intelligence. “Sankaritarina” however, the thirteen minute closer, has a great riff that echoes throughout the entire song and still manages to have the most thought-provoking and elaborate structure here. The remaining two songs, “Auriko Ja Kuu” and “Hiidenpelto” are great as well, incorporating more folkish elements yet without losing the grit.

“Voimasta Ja Kunniasta” can be considered essential listening not only for Moonsorrow lovers but also for Folk Metal fans; an album that uses all of the canons and brings them up at a quality that not many other bands of the genre can do.