Wintersun
| Wintersun | |
|---|---|
 Wintersun on the Rockharz 2019 |
|
| General information | |
| Genre (s) | Melodic Death Metal |
| founding | 2004 |
| Founding members | |
| Jari Maeenpää | |
| Kai Hahto | |
| Current occupation | |
Vocals, electric guitar |
Jari Maeenpää |
Electric guitar, background vocals |
Teemu Mäntysaari (since 2004) |
Electric guitar |
Asim Searah (since 2017) |
Electric bass, backing vocals |
Jukka Koskinen (since 2004) |
Drums |
Kai Hahto |
| former members | |
Electric guitar |
Oliver Fokin (2004) |
| Live support and session musicians | |
Drums |
Timo Häkkinen (live drums: since 2015) |
Drums |
Rolf Pilve (live drums, 2018) |
Drums |
Heikki Saari (live drums, since 2019) |
Wintersun ( English for winter sun is) a Finnish melodic death metal - band around the singer and guitarist Jari Mäenpää .
Band history
In 2004, Jari Mänenpää split from his previous band Ensiferum . In the same year he produced the demo Winter Madness alone and later the debut album Wintersun with drummer Kai Hahto von Rotten Sound . Mänenpäa wrote the published pieces between 1995 and 2003. On September 13, 2004 Wintersun was released by the Nuclear Blast label . The Japanese edition also contained all three pieces from the demo as bonus tracks. A video was shot for the single Beyond the Dark Sun.
In order to be able to perform live, Mäenpää later hired Jukka Koskinen as bassist and Teemu Mäntysaari as second guitarist. He himself takes on both the guitar part and the vocals in live performances. In 2006, Kai Hahto also decided to leave Rotten Sound in order to concentrate fully on Wintersun. In September 2006 the Wintersun Tour Edition was released with a live DVD from Summer Breeze 2005.
In May 2006 Jari Mänenpää started working on the second studio album Time . Originally planned for November 2006, the release date has been postponed several times. In the meantime it has been decided to release the 40 minute long albums Time I and Time II instead of an 80 minute long album . The second studio album Time I was released on October 19, 2012 by Nuclear Blast . Time II should follow about a year later, the publication is pending (as of August 2020). In the years after the publication of Time I , Mäenpää made it clear in several Facebook posts that Time II would not be the next Wintersun album. He justified this with insufficient financial means (in the course of which he also blamed his record label Nuclear Blast) and insufficient equipment or a non-existent studio of his own to be able to complete the complex music titles to his satisfaction.
In 2017 Wintersun announced their third album and it was not, as expected, about Time II , but rather the themes of the four seasons. The band also presented the cover and title of The Forest Seasons . The album was released on July 21, 2017 and was voted album of the year on Metaladdicts.com at the end of 2017.
style
music
The style of the band is difficult to classify but can be described as melodic or epic. It encompasses elements of various metal sub-styles, such as black , death , power and viking metal with corresponding folk influences. In addition, there is a sonic similarity to Jari Mänenpää's previous band Ensiferum, although in contrast to this, the folk parts are not in the foreground.
The songs often have a more complex structure than the typical verse-chorus scheme. An example of this is the title Starchild from the debut album , which can be divided into several parts both musically and lyrically . The singing is characterized by the screaming typical of Black Metal as well as clear, hymn-like singing and high falsetto singing, as in Power Metal. In addition, are often also unusual guitar riffs and - more solid and complex percussion passages to find.
Texts and covers
About the lyrics of the debut album, Mäenpää said in an interview:
“Lyrically it's quite a personal record, but there's a little bit of fantasy also. Actually, you can understand the songs by many ways and meanings, which is great. But underneath all the metaphors to stars, space, vast and cold winter landscapes, it's all about my personal life - my feelings, emotions, thoughts, dreams, visions and hallucinations. "
“Lyrically it's a very personal album, albeit with a little imagination. In fact, there are many different ways to understand the lyrics, which is great. But besides all the metaphors of stars, space, wide and cold winter landscapes, it is also about my personal life - my feelings, emotions, thoughts, dreams, visions and hallucinations. "
In the texts of Wintersun , the thought of death is often questioned, Mäenpää often associates it with stars.
The cover for the debut album was designed by Kristian Wåhlin . The man lying in the snow is supposed to show death and hopelessness. The light between the trees should represent home, goal and birth / healing.
reception
Ed Rivadavia from the All Music Guide praises the compositions on the debut album - despite occasional predictability - in their musical diversity and recommends the album to fans of extreme yet accessible metal . Frodi Stenberg from the Metal Observer particularly emphasizes the technical skills of the musicians involved in an album that increases from song to song and has convinced him, who had treated the genre as exhaustive, of the opposite. Michael Popke of Sea of Tranquility sees the musicians beyond all doubt regarding the control of their instruments and the compositional skills; However, he was not convinced by the style of Jari Mäenpää's singing , it would not be in harmony with the rest.
Sebastian Kessler from Metal Hammer described the second Wintersun album Time I as "bombastic, epic, majestic". He also emphasizes that the album needs several runs, since "The sheer mass of orchestral tracks, instrumental interludes and overstretched melodies [...]" literally overwhelms you. Nevertheless, he praised the abundance of detail that “Wintersun ruler Jari Mänenpää has put into 'Sons Of Winter And Stars', 'Land Of Snow And Sorrow' and 'Time' without losing sight of the big picture” as “simply enchanting “And awarded 6 out of 7 possible points. Björn Thorsten Jaschinski from Rock Hard awarded 8.0 out of 10 points. “The extensive orchestration,” he says, “sounds artificial despite the enormous amount of time invested”. He praised the fact that not only Mäenpää's vocal repertoire is more variable, but also "[...] would make the folky choruses, especially of 'Sons Of Winter And Stars' and 'Land Of Snow And Sorrow', even more majestic [...]"
Band members
- Wintersun live on the Rockharz 2019
Singer Jari Mänenpää
Guitarist Teemu Mäntysaari
Guitarist Asim Searah
Bass player Jukka Koskinen
Tour drummer Heikki Saari
Discography
Studio albums
| year | Title music label |
Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, music label , placements, weeks, awards, notes) |
Remarks | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 DE
|
 AT
|
 CH
|
 FI
|
|||
| 2004 |
Wintersun Nuclear Blast |
- | - | - | - |
First release: September 13, 2004, re-released
as a Tour Edition in 2006 |
| 2012 | Time I Nuclear Blast |
DE21 (2 weeks) DE |
AT33 (1 week) AT |
CH26 (1 week) CH |
FI2 (7 weeks) FI |
First published: October 19, 2012
|
| 2017 | The Forest Season Nuclear Blast |
DE14 (3 weeks) DE |
AT20 (1 week) AT |
CH16 (3 weeks) CH |
FI1 (4 weeks) FI |
First published: July 21, 2017
|
more publishments
- 2004: Winter Madness Demo
Web links
- Official Facebook page
- Chart sources: DE / AT / CH / FI
Individual evidence
- ↑ Releases. wintermadness.net; Retrieved October 1, 2008
- ↑ Wintersun CD Japan. cduniverse.com; Retrieved October 1, 2008
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from August 31, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Interview with Mäinenpää on the Heidenfest homepage
- ↑ Release date. nuclearblast.de; Retrieved July 20, 2012
- ↑ Wintersun shoot at their label - they react (luckily) calmly . Metal hammer; accessed on January 4, 2017
- ↑ Hammer Podcast # 3 Jari Müllenpää vs Paky Orrasi. Metal hammer; accessed on January 4, 2017
- ↑ Wintersun announce new album for 2017. RockHard; accessed on January 4, 2017
- ↑ metaladdicts.com. Retrieved January 11, 2018
- ↑ Ciaran Meeks: Jari Mypenpää. (No longer available online.) Metaleater, December 29, 2004, archived from the original on May 29, 2006 ; accessed on March 18, 2014 (English).
- ↑ Interview with Jari Muchtenpää. getreadytorock.com; Retrieved October 1, 2008
- ^ Ed Rivadavia: Wintersun Review. In: Allmusic . Retrieved July 19, 2008 .
- ^ Frodi Stenberg: Wintersun Review. In: Metal Observer . Retrieved July 19, 2008 .
- ↑ Michael Popke: Wintersun Review. In: Sea of Tranquility . August 3, 2005, accessed July 19, 2008 .
- ↑ Sebastian Kessler: Review: Wintersun - Time I. In: Metal Hammer . Retrieved January 4, 2017 .
- ↑ Björn Thorsten Jaschinski: Review: Wintersun - Time I. In: Rock Hard . Retrieved January 4, 2017 .
