Moonsorrow "Viides Luku: Hävitetty" (The End)
By Cameron Higby-Naquin
Friday. May 04, 2:02 PM
A colossus that will take your breath away.

The Finnish Moonsorrow have released a colossus. Viides Luku: Hävitetty is lumbering and ferocious, majestic and chaotic. It is music for gathering around a campfire in the wintry woods, for vanquishing hordes of skulking trolls in the mist, or watching an apocalypse of ice and fire engulf the land. Each mood of this epic tale is bound within two very long tracks. The album could have been, but for aesthetic reasons was not, divided into a myriad of shorter songs. The tracks flow, journeying along a heroic path. Some sections are calm, acoustic bits replete with clean vocals and woodsy sound effects. Yet without interruption the mood can progress into rousing, militaristic marches, frenzied, disordered mayhem, elegiac hymns of sadness, or sinister, doomy dirges. Though this may sound schizophrenic, the unity in each track is remarkable. Each mood contributes to a whole which is, for lack of another term, epic.

Musically, Moonsorrow's sound is big. Almost everywhere on the album, with the exception of the quieter acoustic sections, there are multiple guitars and keyboards going at once. The goal seems to be to overwhelm the listener, and quite often they succeed. The polished production makes the instruments blend together very well. The instruments seem almost liquid at some points, freely mixing within a tremendous tidal wave. It is essential for keyboard-heavy bands to have decent production, so Moonsorrow do not disappoint in that arena. Typically the keymasters summon imposing choirs or sorrowful strings, but they are capable of other feats as well. The drums shift between providing the driving force in the faster sections and providing an atmospheric rumbling, a thunder that emphasizes the grandiose import of the music. The vocals do not play a huge part in the music on their own, most commonly they blend with the rest of the instruments within the wave of sound. Ville Sorvali adapts his voice to the mood of the section, crying out or singing cleanly as dictated by the music.

In some ways, the epic scale of Moonsorrow reminds me of a better-produced, more varied Graveland. It is worth taking the time to listen and re-listen to the songs. Because there are no track divisions, it is easy to become lost and submerged under the rolling surges of sound. With every hearing, something new emerges from the boiling deeps, some new layer floats to the surface while others sink into obscurity. And yet the variations merely add to the whole, a whole that is so well orchestrated it nearly takes your breath away when all the parts come together at the final push, a final reiteration of the theme. Each track tells a story, and the music is so expressive one need not know Finnish to understand it.
www.moonsorrow.com
www.theendrecords.com

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Cameron Higby-Naquin

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