Wintersun

Since this spring I've been developing an ear for death metal. I haven't discussed this fact much with people, knowing the knee-jerk reaction such an "extreme metal" genre usually evokes. It's not music if there's no singing, right? And aren't the lyrics all Satanic and gory, not at all the stuff a Christian should listen to? Let me examine these assumptions with the experience I have with the genre:

The music: In comparison with my beloved power metal, death metal tends to be at least as fast, with heavier-sounding guitars that are more often played in minor keys. It is very riff-focused and often has furious guitar solos. The drumming has lots of bass pedal and "blast beats" (2-time beats involving the bass drum, snare drum, and a cymbal that are usually played extremely quickly). It's a very technically demanding genre. And, of course, the vocals are usually shouted, snarled, screamed, or grunted rather than sung.

There's no questioning that usually these elements are acquired musical tastes (in the same way that people tell me alcohol is an acquired taste). Someone who isn't already into metal is much less likely to love a Dark Tranquillity album for the first time as he is a HammerFall album. Personally, I prefer melodic death metal, which has at least as much in common with the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (think Iron Maiden, epic fantasy-themed lyrics, melodic guitar harmonies, and the like) as it does with '80s thrash. At its most melodic, it's basically power metal minus the clean vocals. (Though it can have quite a bit of clean vocals) It's powerful, epic, and even beautiful. At any rate, there's nothing "bad" or "wrong" about the musical style of death metal, as abrasive as it can be. I believe that preferred style of music (without considering lyrics) is simply a matter of taste, not of morality.

But what about the lyrics? It's true that the Satanic and gory themes people usually associate with death metal characterized it in the beginning. But like so many other genres (punk, grunge, even rock itself), the style outgrew the original culture that defined it and was responsible for its early lyrics. Namely, it grew its way to Scandanavia, where bands like At the Gates and In Flames redefined it and created melodic death metal. As I said above, it was considerably more melodic and accessible than the 'brutal' death metal that was on the rise in America. I enjoy it much more. Additionally, the lyrics were much less nasty and more diverse. The only common feature of melodic death metal lyrics I've identified is that they tend to be dark in tone, but this doesn't stop them from being enjoyable, deep, even beautiful. (See Opeth) Case in point: an album I've been getting into recently...

Wintersun is the band of former Ensiferum vocalist Jari Mäenpää (don't you love awesome Finnish names?). The lyrics are quite poetic and, rather predictably, often about winter. (I might be biased toward them because of this) Musically, it is mostly fast and furious, with melodic guitars akin to a fiercer brand of power metal plus plenty of blast beats. The keyboards give it a distinctive expansive, "spacy" sound that evokes the feel of a winter night (again, the perfect album for someone whose favorite season is winter). It's also nearly unique in my iTunes library in that every song on the album is longer than the last. It's a cool effect as you feel like you're going deeper and deeper into the album--and this is a very deep album. Each song (except maybe the two-and-a-half-minute opener) has many sections to it and this album is as deep as many a prog album. A sign of a good album is that I enjoy it more every time I listen to it, which is certainly the case for Wintersun.

Lyrically, the songs appear to follow the last thoughts of a man lost in a winter night struggling against the cold and his own delusions, but they are intentionally open to interpretation. They are poetically penned in the trademark nearly-correct-so-it-sounds-cooler style of many Finnish metal bands. The album has a mix of operatic clean vocals and screams; overall Jari is talented and understandable whatever style he's using.

The album starts off with the one-two punch of Beyond the Dark Sun and Winter Madness which introduce us to the band's frantic tempos, superb guitar and keyboard melodies, and top-notch drumming. This is a band that isn't afraid to sound big, all while keeping up the pace. They slow down to a crawl for the first part of Sleeping Stars while the atmospheric keyboards take over, but after that we have one of the album standouts, Battle Against Time, which has some truly awesome tempo shifts. Keep in mind that the farther into the album we get, the more progressive the songs become.

Death and the Healing is a largely instrumental track devoid of screamed vocals, probably the most beautiful song on the album. Starchild is an epic journey both lyrically and musically. Beautiful Death is a furious 8-minute musical attack that ends with a pretty cool ambient section. Album finisher Sadness and Hate provides a satisfyingly epic conclusion to this majestic album. If you're looking for some metal that defies genre boundaries and provides a satisfying listen for the head and the ears, I highly recommend Wintersun.