adg211288 Jordpuls (which means “Pulse of the Earth”) is the seventh full-length album by Swedish band Vintersorg, released in 2011. Vintersorg’s music has covered several styles of metal, being mostly rooted in the extremer side of the genre and with Jordpuls we’re presented with pretty much a progressive metal affair with folk influences. Some of the riffs take on a black metal edge as well.

Like with the previous Vintersorg release Solens rötter the lyrics of Jordpuls are all in the band’s native Swedish. Band frontman Andreas Hedlund (who also uses the stage name of Vintersorg although the actual band is in fact two members) delivers these lyrics with a mix of growled vocals and soaring cleans. Both are pretty fitting to the style of metal on offer on Jordpuls. Hedlund is clearly a talented musician not just as a vocalist, and he handles much of Jordpuls by himself with only the aid of guitarist Mattias Marklund. Vocally he shines but then I never heard the man (who is also involved with many other projects including Borknagar, Cronian and Otyg) deliver a bad performance on that front. But despite a strong vocal, overall I don’t find a lot to write home about with Vintersorg’s 2011 offering.

The problem isn’t that Jordpuls is a bad album, because it certainly isn’t. The problem is that Jordpuls isn’t a good album either. It’s certainly listenable music, but upon its conclusion I’m just left with entirely neutral feelings. It took until the album’s sixth track, Skogen Sover, for me to sit up and really pay attention to it. I did actually enjoy this song a fair bit. It has a somewhat chaotic atmosphere to parts of it which I liked a lot, and the folk inspired sections also worked pretty well within the general progressive structure. But everything that came before and after it just passed me by without striking me as noteworthy with the exception of closing ballad Eld Och Lågor, which was actually a very enjoyable acoustic affair.

There are certainly good ideas in the music, but in general they seem stretched a bit too thinly over the album’s duration. It isn’t an overly long either, lasting about forty-seven minutes, making this an even bigger problem. I also dislike the fact that for something with folk elements the album sounds very fake and manufactured when it comes to thgem, being mostly acoustic guitar or keyboard driven folk melodies as opposed to actual folk instrumentation. Given that Jordpuls is firstmost and foremost a progressive metal album and not full blown folk metal such a thing would have been easier to overlook and could have been put down as using folk melodies rather than trying to actually be folk metal, had those compositions been up to scratch, plus also taking into account that that manufactured feel to the album stretches over into the metal side of things with the use of programmed drums, although to be fair this isn’t noticeable. With the lack of quality songs the falseness of the folk parts stands out all too well and makes Jordpuls seem a very much uninspired affair.

The inclusion of two tracks that stood out as decent, Skogen Sover and Eld Och Lågor, save Jordpuls from total mediocrity but in general the album just leaves me with neither good or bad feelings and is deserving of a score to demonstrate as such. The two good tracks coax a small portion of additional score from me, but not to the point where I’d really consider this album leaving the middle of the road territory to make it into the above average zone. It’s the sort of music that if on I wouldn’t necessarily turn it off, but I wouldn’t be the one pressing play. I guess prior fans of Vintersorg may enjoy this album more than I did, but to me for the most part it sounds fake and directionless and a bitter disappointment to listen to.

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven, scoring 5.4/10)

Conor Fynes 'Jordpuls' - Vintersorg (5/10)

Although beginning as a fairly black/folk metal oriented project, Norwegian duo Vintersorg has since tread quite far from the label, instead more recently being quite a bit more melodic and mellow in their music. The seventh album 'Jordpuls' was described to me as an album that takes the band further back to their roots, but still greatly evident is the strong presence of clean vocal harmonies. After a brilliant impression with the previous Vintersorg output 'Solens Rotter', I was quite intrigued to hear what these guys would have to offer now. 'Jordpuls' greatly disappoints me in the sense that it feels like it is a step backwards in virtually every respect for the band, despite the fact that Vintersorg has still maintained some of their strengths here.

There isn't too much of an evident development in Vintersorg's sound on 'Jordpuls'; rather a regression in the pejorative sense. The songwriting feels somewhat dumbed down from the dynamic, melodic and powerful presentation given on the prior album, but 'Jordpuls' does generally pull through. There are still some of the same great black metal guitar riffage here in parts, but the highlight of the sound remains frontman Andreas Hedlund's beautiful clean vocal harmonies, which had me fall in love with 'Solens Rotter' originally, and now do make up an even greater proportion of what there is to like about this album. Despite the shortcomings concerning how memorable the melodies here may actually be, Hedlund still stands strong as being a master of harmony.

Possibly the most disappointing element of 'Jordpuls' is the folk instrumentation, or- in this album's case- programming. From the very beginning, I was immediately put off by the cheap, fake sounds that seemed as if they were trying to emulate such instruments as the violin. Although I am generally appreciative of the fact that many bands do not have the resources to have all of the instruments they would like on their album, there does not feel as if there is an excuse for Vintersorg in this case; albums in the past have heard the folk element sound much less contrived and fake. If this has been an artistic decision on the band's part, it sadly does not work to their benefit, and tends to have me think that this may have been a step backward for the band. On the other hand, the drum machine here is done fairly well; sounding often as if there is a real session drummer behind the kit.

I cannot wholeheartedly recommend 'Jordpuls' as a listen, due to the fact that Vintersorg has disappointed the fan in me with this one. Although it scarcely compares to the last couple of albums they have released, 'Jordpuls' does retain some of the things that had me love the project to begin with, so I'm not left entirely discouraged.