Whenever one of Nuclear Blast’s tired mainstream warriors gets RMR to come out of the woodwork, Wintersun‘s siren call may well be the culprit that made us do it. Everyone has been waiting forever and a day for Jari Mäenpää to finally make his move. Unending delays, false promises, and grift, after grift passed us by1 but Time II still wouldn’t appear. Until such time that the RMR Review Desk finally stopped looking for it.
Now, after a friggin’ 12 years of waiting and a lot of ridicule, the band finally delivered – something. If you remember, RMR himself was carefully optimistic after Time I hit the review pipe over here. The Forest Seasons filled us with foreboding though, and – in truth – most of the audience wasn’t quite in sync with it. But we’re not talking about the go-between. The sequel to Time I is on our minds now. And the question is if Time II will finally be a worthy successor. Fantasy and spacey excitement ahead. Or is it?
Let me make a statement. Time I sounded firm, well-poised, and thoughtful. A record full of melodic elements and beautiful harmonies, it wove its way down some seemingly orientally-tainted pathways. But – this came at the detriment of the metallic parts that should kinda sit dead center in the mix of a metal album. And while sometimes this first installment made one feel as if Disney lurked backstage somewhere,2 it often led to hauntingly beautiful soundscapes that ran a few times too many on our music machine.
Time II, in contrast, seems to be on a mission to win the friggin’ loudness war all over again. A record that – yet again and allegedly – used a gazillion tracks per song to find that perfect sound. An attempt to create a feeling of grandeur that should blow you away – but instead managed to generate that dreaded feeling of bloat.
Jari Mäenpää again acts as the lone mastermind of the piece. And by his own admission, he was “…assisted by guitarist Teemu Mäntysaari (Megadeth), bassist Jukka Koskinen (Nightwish, Crownshift) and drummer Kai Hahto (Nightwish).” Assisted, huh? Methinks these gentlemen are well-established musicians in their own rights, not just mere studio folks. But I digress, of course.
Time II valiantly tries to latch on to its predecessor and generate some continuation. And it indeed succeeds to an extent. To the point, that one can discern Ensiferum‘s influences to a certain level. But Nightwish’s ghost seems to haunt the stage, also.3 You still get a lot of trademark Asian influences in the tune, which does add some limited spice. Beautifully constructed harmonies, dreamy instrumental parts with often heavenly shredding, and a potpourri of rasps, croaks, and halfway shouted meaty clears that seem to emerge straight from Power Metal’s feistier parts. A farandole of melodics and reasonably harsh metal that neatly follows the themes. One for each song as the lore goes. Time II, a recipe to just lean back, immerse yourself in a well-constructed slab of metal o’ the light, and let the colorful butterflies soar. Right?
There is just one problem. If creators have too many toys and too much time on their hands, the production might not live up to expectations. The mix now pushes the guitars way up front center, which is great. But the thing is often so bricked up that I am sure the casual listener will miss 90% of all those many individual tracks in action on each song. Then, the tendency to endlessly repeat the same tropes all over again and a refusal to self-edit surely won’t help. The result is some malevolent sound salad that’s often difficult to stomach. In other words, if I have to listen to a record about five times to get to the finer details, something is amiss. The piece surely ain’t overly long, but a brutal visit with the carving knife might lead to astonishing results.
Fianlly, it took Jari Mäenpää 12 years to deliver – some mere 49 minutes of metal action. That is a whopping four minutes of new music per year, fueled by a ton of crowdfunding. Time II often sounds chaotic, slightly unhinged, and wild. An over-engineered piece of Symphonic Metal with a tendency to deliver too much of everything at every corner of the way. The record feels like that wretched sophomore album from hell that just wouldn’t sit still. And instead of getting a beautifully carved and elegantly crafted metal statue, the result is some sort of darkly brooding goblin.
And that’s a pity.
Record Rating: 5/10 | Label: Nuclear Blast | Web: Official Band Site
Release Date: 30 August 2024