SONATA ARCTICA — Winterheart's Guild (review)

SONATA ARCTICA — Winterheart's Guild album cover Album · 2003 · Power Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
Pekka
Straight up power metal with double bass drums thundering above everything else has never ever been my thing, but from the moment I happened to hear this album years and years ago I've had a strange thing for it. I had seen the band live before, in 2003, and while I already loved Tony Kakko's voice the music otherwise gave me nothing at all.

The opening track on the surface is just what I didn't like about this band, but suddenly the melodies are infectious and catchy, the drumming fits in, and the listener is given room to breathe midway through. The band's palette seems much wider than on previous releases that I had heard, the second track Gravenimage being a great little epic with drama and just the right pompousness, and a big portion of the album being taken up by ballads and rockier, more mid-paced songs. The Cage is another double bass powerhouse with a great Jens Johansson synth solo kicking it off, but it doesn't really reach the standard set by the opening track, which is the case with the other speedier tracks Victoria's Secret and Ruins of My Life.

With the beautiful numbers The Misery and Draw Me, the heavier Broken and the rocking Silver Tongue balancing the full on power attack, which is given a nice quirky twist on Champagne Bath, the album is a delightingly varied mix of different styles, the great melodies coming through all the way. But while Tony Kakko's voice is the thing I most of all like about Sonata Arctica, on this album it's also the biggest flaw, with the very Finnish pronouncing in certain parts being quite hard on the ears. Perhaps I'm the only one having this problem.

I think this is the only album in my collection that falls under the subgenre, but with such positive reaction to it, who knows if I'll end up broadening my view of the style. Up to this point every time I've felt the urge to have some, I've known that I have just the right album to do the trick.
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