Weekly album: Moonsorrow - Tämä ikuinen talvi

Moonsorrow - Tämä ikuinen talvi

1999 / Pagan Black Metal

1. Taistelu pohjolasta

2. Vihreällä valtaistuimella

3. Talvi

4. Luopion veri

5. Kuun suru

Kattroll: Freezing cold temprerature outside, car completely frozen and the amount of force I had to use to push the shopping carts in work maximized my limits. Few years ago, I could honestly say that I hated winter, but this is not possible anymore. After I found this album, I've learned to love winter. After a commonly awful day in work, I lit some candles and poured myself a glass of red wine. Then I placed my "Tämä ikuinen talvi" vinyl on the player for the very first time and succeeded in it without breaking it. It felt fantastic.

"Taistelu pohjolasta's" intro starts, and oh how I love it. This is what, in my opinion, is lacking in the 2008 reissue of this very song. This intro might just be one of the reasons, why the original is so fancy. The snowy footstep crunches of the intro feel simultaneously so fascinating and crude. You have no idea, who is coming and why, and the synth pattern after this doesn't decrease the mysterious effect.

In some cases machine drums are actually really awful and thus being an absolute no no from time to time, but on this album, the drum machine fits like a glove. Moonsorrow's demo era basically consisted of the two Sorvali cousins without an actual drummer. Drum machine blast beats, buzzing guitar riffs, Ville's rough vocals, beautiful melodies and crude winter influenced lyrics are actually all you need. "As the autumn turns to winter." Nowadays I actually anticipate this phenomenon, for it's impossible to listen to this masterpiece during summer. It achieves its peak in middle of a blizzard, but when there's not enough snow and coldness, even small amount of snowfall and frost do the trick. This is actually the reason why I chose this as an album of the week. Winter finally came.

If I had to say something bad about this album, I'd point out that the songs itself sound quite the same, excluding the intro and outro, making picking the favourite song quite hard. On the other hand, the album works magically just the way it is, so why change it?

Couple of the top moments of this album are the accelerating blast beat sections of "Talvi" and the main riff of "Luopion veri", which starts right after "Talvi" ends. It's a shame that Moonsorrow don't really play these songs live. Not even on the tour named "Talvi." At least they played "Taistelu pohjolasta" at Steelfest 2015. bit without the intro of course. At least the played the song. Oh the amount of euphoria I felt. Too bad the skank next to me didn't feel the same way as I and started to pull my hair. If you can't handle the front row, don't force your way there.  

"Kuun suru" is probably the prettiest outro song ever. So beautiful and calm. I can imagine the ice reflecting the shining of the stars. A perfect ending for a perfect album. 

Orostider: There are some bands who release demos which fall behind the rest of their releases and bands who release demos which are sort of timeless and are worth listening to even after several great releases. Moonsorrow is one of the bands that belong to the latter group. "Tämä ikuinen talvi" actually tops some of their full-lengths, even though all of their releases are superb. That's something I'd call an achievement.

Music-wise, "Tämä ikuinen talvi" offers early Enslaved influenced pagan black metal with moderate quality production. To people only aware of Moonsorrow's later releases, this album contains more pure black metal influence than what's present on the full-lengths. Even if this sounds menacing or if you prefer the lesser black metal influenced albums (like Voimasta ja kunniasta), this release is worth checking out. Just wait for the cold winter storms to come and listen to this album while observing the blizzard punishing people outside. It'll be worth it.       

tp5170: Despite generally liking the genre Moonsorrow represents quite a lot, the band has never appealed to me that much. ‘Tämä ikuinen talvi’ is the third or fourth release of theirs that I have checked out and my impression still stays unchanged. It’s not like there is anything wrong with the band’s style or so, and it just might be that I am not a huge fan of the overall atmosphere they are aiming for. ‘Tämä ikuinen talvi’ is not a bad release by any means and the songs’ heavier parts are something I do appreciate but unfortunately the other parts do not strike me as that engaging.

btcarey: Moonsorrow’s demo, “Tämä Ikuinen Talvi”, seems to get better and better with every listen. This being said, I really didn’t think much of it after my first play through. The demo wasn’t as in-your-face as the music I was into at the time, and I missed many of the subtleties that make this demo great. It wasn’t until recently that, by chance, I came across this obscure little jewel and gave it another spin. To my surprise, there was so much more going on then what I had originally absorbed. As soon as the last track ended, I instantly hit replay, since then I’ve been hooked.

Even though Moonsorrow is currently one of the leaders in folk / pagan metal, their roots lie deep in the depths of symphonic black metal. While I’m not a big fan of symphonic black metal specifically, Moonsorrow balances black and symphonic elements perfectly, giving “Tämä Ikuinen Talvi” a beautiful mix. The music is as expected; heavily symphonized passages, melodic keyboard work, and full out black metal guitar riffs and vocals. If you’re a fan of Moonsorrow or like folk, symphonic black, or black metal genres, give this a few spins and tell me it isn’t awesome.

Favorite Song: Luopioden Veri