Wintersun – Time II Review

At any given moment, there are a handful of albums in the making that are of the sort that genuinely qualify as “highly anticipated”. Now, I don’t mean some underground act that has put out a single album and now their label wants to throw around that term in some effort to generate attention and hopefully buyers for a band that hardly anyone has heard of. I mean a name that is known the world over for what it has already done across multiple albums with the prospect of new material via a long wait with fans always making sure the name is being circulated during the silence. Every year sees the release of a few of such qualifying pieces with the name of Wintersun one that has been on rotation for quite some time now.

Wintersun is one of those bands that, if you’re paying attention, you’ve surely seen here and there overtime with much of their news coverage being of the more interesting variety to put it mildly. After an immensely successful crowdfunding campaign that resulted in a new studio even despite a seven-year wait just since the last full-length album from Wintersun, 2017’s “The Forest Seasons”. Despite timelines showing that Wintersun was to have the follow-up to 2012’s “Time I” much sooner than what has now resulted in a twelve-year wait, I will leave the recap there as this is not the place for that. Given all of that, however, to say that the long-promised “Time II” would be a new peak for Wintersun‘s incredibly diverse sound wouldn’t be far from an understatement given what time, hype, and the band’s reputation have done thus far. 

I would forgive anyone for thinking that after a wildly successive crowdfunding that resulted in the original goal being met extremely quickly with the end-result being three times what Wintersun had initially sought out would mean for an album that has a level of detail, finesse, prowess, and excellence that one would expect from a band that can be argued as one of the most engaging and compelling acts in all of what this kind of metal can bring about. Whether you want to call this folk metal, melodic death, folky melo-death, “universal metal”, or literally anything else, Wintersun has always had a complexity and attitude that incredibly few others can even come close to. After twelve years of fine tuning and really making sure the work is something to lose oneself in, I wouldn’t fault anyone for having high expectations. After a twelve-year wait and everything that has led up to today, “Time II” certainly lives up to its potential in some areas while succumbing to its own promises of grandeur.

Across a nearly 49-minute runtime, “Time II” is anything but a stagnant experience. Constantly swirling and shifting in such a way that is always moving the album forward, Wintersun ventures to a more Asian backdrop with all the folk instruments, atmosphere, songwriting, and themes to match. Accompanied with a collection of riffs and immensely layered songwriting that offer a deep dive into what has always made Wintersun a force to be reckoned with, it’s made clear out of the gate that Wintersun has managed to put together a massive experience that has as much to peel apart as one could ask for. Where plenty of others would have stopped, the perseverance and attention to the finest of details is to be admired on part of Wintersun, yet it can easily offer an air of being overproduced. 

While I cannot help but bask in the moments where the metal is pulled back with the cherry blossom leaves flying through the air and the snow whirls around my head, “Time II” tries to become far more than what is necessary. It all depends on what Wintersun was going for in the making of “Time II”. If the goal was to create an amazingly dense listen that blends melodic death elements with Asian-inspired atmospheres and themes the likes of which can only be likened to a band like Whispered in certain moments, then this album is a wild success. However, in the bid to be all-encompassing and massive, “Time II” can become hollow and without much personality. I would dare not question the passion or the talent of Wintersun with both of those evident throughout the record, but Wintersun misses the mark more times than not. It’s a fascinating listen in concept with more than a few moments across its six tracks that offer beautiful visions and an intense approach that only high-class metal can bring to the table, nonetheless. 

Twelve years is a long time for any album to be crafted over with any band, no matter how big or talented it may be, susceptible to any kind of pitfalls that may occur in such a time. The potential of “Time II” is simply magnificent to bear witness to and maybe if Wintersun had simply decided when enough was enough and released “Time II” five or six years ago, before or after “The Forest Seasons” I doubt it would matter, then perhaps the hype would certainly have been appropriate for the work. It’s the torment of any dedicated artist to know when it stop in the crafting process as the search for ultimate perfection effortlessly something that can consume even the best of us.

I applaud Wintersun for its dedication to it craft and its lofty hopes for a transformative work that can stand on its own apart from the great vast majority of what the rest of the world can bring to the table even if the end result of “Time II” leaves me somehow feeling like the attention wasn’t put into the right areas in multiple instances. It’s still with more than enough power and grandiosity that “Time II” is the definition of a dense listen with all of its songwriting and technical prowess ensuring an experience like hardly anything else. “Time II” is a flawed experience, but it’s still a work that earns a number of accolades for what it dares to be.

Time II track listing:

1. Fields Of Snow 4:05

2. The Way Of The Fire 10:08

3. One With The Shadows 6:19

4. Ominous Clouds 2:22

5. Storm 12:15

6. Silver Leaves 13:31

Total running time: 48:40