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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"one step to suffering, one step to freedom.", January 1, 2008
Moonsorrow's _VIIDES LUKU - HÄVITETTY_ (_Chapter V: Ravaged_) is so huge it makes the bands previous epic standards seem puny by comparison. And I have to say, as great as Moonsorrow's grandiose Viking metal has been up to this point, especially the last one _VERISÄKEET_, this blows it away! How do they keep doing this stuff???? Here, instead of a half-dozen epic songs like previous albums, _HÄVITETTY_ is just two-massive half-hour tracks where all of Moonsorrow's supreme strengths are on display: crushing metal sound, tuneful metal arrangements with diverse instrumentation, borrowed folk melodies, drumming that is more "percussionist" than "metal drummer", powerful choral chanting and screams for vox, and absolute Epicness whose footprint covers all kinds of evocative landscapes. The five-piece metal core of the band is accompanied by lots of acoustic guitars, synths, mouth harp, and accordion, and choral ensemble. Blastbeats are dominant only in one passage in per track, as Moonsorrow uses them with blasting riffs as peaks of violent emotional intensity. Much of the music is otherwise mid-tempo, with slower and quieter passages throughout. When these build-and-release patterns are masterfully spread out over half-hour epics and capped off with flattening endings, you get what is really one of the best metal albums of recent years, and ever. You must pick it up.
The first track, "Born of Ice/Stream of Shadows" begins with several minutes of lugubrious chanting, crystalline electric guitar arpeggios, and rippling bass sounds that sound like a campfire. There is no metal until about six and a half minutes in, it spends its earlier moments building tension. Then after a slow quake of distorted, ascending scales, a mid-tempo chug with beautiful tremolo riffing and Sorvali screams of "one note of the still landscape carrie[d] afar on the quiet lake". The middle passages that follow, from melodic folk melodies arranged for aggressive metal and breathtaking blastbeasts played to unabashed major key guitars, not to mention a wonderful part with grumbling set of low-octave keys on piano, vamping with crunching riffs...all show absolutely perfect songcraft. There is a wonderful acoustic passage about 16-minutes in where an accordion lead accompanies strummed chords and rolling triplet beat. Everywhere the band shows incredible imagination and, I dunno what the word is... MASTERFUL TASTE, maybe. Words are somewhat inadequate. The finale is uplifting with huge backdrop of orchestral sounding synths and voices, and the requisite chimes for extra effect. As it fades, the initial chord from the beginning is played once with those fiery sounding rumbles in the background, then it goes into the chanting-and-percussion jam that opens the next song.
Impossibly it would seem, "A Land Driven Into the Fire" is even better than the first track. After the first part, there is a haunting minor-key passage for strummed acoustic guitar, mouth harp, accordion, and timpani. As it progresses, a ghostly wisp of electric guitar foreshadows the slow yet pitilessly heavy riff that eventually appears. The minor key passage is worked in again with more distorted conditions. The electric-acoustic mix is maintained beautifully for some time... until essentially broken by the tsunami of the so-called Valhalla choir that appears in full-force, sounding very high in the mix and singing awesomely "splinter your axes against the rocks ... shed your skin to reveal your flesh". there is a long build-up, and as with track 1 this piece covers huge territory, including another accordion-m.harp-acoustic guitar jam, and the breathtaking assault of razer-sharp black metal with hellfire drums & guitars at the 13-minute point, and parts like _bergtatt_-era Garm leading a militaristic army of Vikings on electric guitars inspired by black metal, folk, and prog rock. It is all absolutely spectacular, but the ending really pushes it over the edge. It is one of the greatest finales I've ever heard in music, I get chills thinking about it! Probably from about 20:00 to the final seconds with its quiet sounds... amazing. It takes you off guard at one point by fading out to almost nothing, when you think "that's it, now there'll probably be a long outro of nice little nature samples..." and it already would have been an awesome finale... but then it kicks in again and it's more awesome and triumphant even than before. CLASSIC.
Every great band naturally comes to a peak, usually somewhere in the middle of their career. To inconsequentially speculate, _Chapter V_ is so amazing this could be Moonsorrow's peak, and as such it is easily one of the best albums in its field. If the band can ever surpass this, I probably won't be able to handle it. The band is just so good they must be using sorcery! You can put this music equally with the best of black metal/Viking metal, but also the best of progressive metal epics, as they share symphonic structures and diverse elements.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
From Fire-Pit to Mountain Top and back again, January 12, 2008
Anyone that listens to this CD will tell you that, in the end, it cannot really be described, it must be experienced. This album is not for everyone as you might be able to tell from there being only 2 tracks (each around a half hour long), but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't give it a chance. It requires time, patience, an attentive ear, and an open mind, but if you manage to pull yourself away from this crazy world for an hour or so, and commit yourself to this CD from beginning to end, you may just find yourself wide-eyed, out of breath, and searching your room with your eyes, looking for something you cannot see because it isn't there. It's in the sounds, from the crackling fire and soft background harmonics into the harp-like intro guitars, the thick bass, the precise exciting drums, and a continuous, relentless build up of musical elements.
The songs build and build, and break, and re-build, and smooth out, and get heavy, and build and build until you almost can't take it anymore. Till you wonder what else can be layered, what else can be morphed or added to raise the music any higher, and then it happens, right before your ears. With alternations between the fast and the slow, the hard and the serene, the impassioned and the hopeless, and enough musical talent and maturity to fill the grand canyon, V: Havietetty (Chapter V, Ravaged) is an emotional roller coaster, a powerfully near and exceptionally relateable journey through a diverse musical landscape that if you take the time to listen, will grasp you from the first strums of the guitar straight through to the heart-wrenching, tear-educing finale.
Again, this is not for everyone. Some may be bored before the album ever really gets going, some may listen to every note and remain unimpressed. But what I'm asking you to do is not to listen with your technical ear, or with your metal ear, or even with your musical ear, but simply to listen, and let Moonsorrow take you. Grab yourself a good pair of headphones, get into your favorite relaxation pose, and prepare to climb from a fire-pit at the base of the tallest mountain, and end at it's peak, arms outstretched, with a smile on your face and the knowledge that you may very well never look at metal, or even music, the same way again.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very good and very epic!, May 1, 2007
This is Moonsorrow's best album since "Voimasta ja Kunniasta" (English trans. "Strength and Honor")." The two songs are very epic, one clocks in at over a half and hour but never loses steam, and both songs are as good or better than the best two songs off their previous album, "Verisakeet," which I found to be somewhat lacking in quality. Buy this album if you like Viking Metal, Pagan Metal, or Folk Metal. It is not a must for fans of metal in general, but it is one of the most interesting albums this year. "V: Havitetty" (English trans. V: Ravaged) is one solid release that will make you bang your head and maybe even make you grab your sword! This gets four and a half stars out of five.
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