Keskustelua raskaammasta musiikista ›

Kumma ettei tätä ketjua ole vielä kukaan nostanut esille, vaikka uusi levy on ollut tiedossa jo pidemmän aikaa ja ehtinyt ilmestyäkin. Minä voisin aloittaa keskustelun siitä lainaamalla omaa, jokin aika sitten toiselle boardille kirjoittamaani mielipidekirjoitustani. Koska olen laiska ja uskon että suurimmalla osalla on toinen kotimainen riittävästi hallussa, en ryhdy sitä kääntämään.
 
I got the new album over a week ago but with all the Ali Project and Hiromi Uehara listening I had the time to give it a spin only now. Although it doesn't surpass those artists, I now feel a slight sting of regret about not getting to it sooner.
 
To my ear Varangian Way doesn't sound that much different from Battle Metal (and certainly not like either Rhapsody or Týr) but why then did it manage to blow me away, unlike the only sometimes tolerable debut? The answer is the whole.
 
First of all the concept of writing the album as a historical fiction story is brilliant. Furthermore it's a personal story that's fleshed out through both the music and lyrics, on a level that's almost unique in the world of music. Instead of anonymous, uninteresting soldiers battling against the totally super-evil orcs inside a thinly veiled adolescent power fantasy, the über-bombastic brass parts on the album signify eg. the reverence of a man who's come a long, hard way from admidst small wooden houses seeing a city that is nothing short of miraculous in comparison. This time Turisas really achieves what they "advertised" in Prologue for R.R.R on the first album.
 
The difference in the tastefulness is thankfully not made by context alone. The composition and especially arrangement have progressed in leaps from Battle Metal. Now the more massive themes are kept from choking the songs with frequent dynamic changes and different thematic arrangements. Especially the unpretentious, melodic clean vocals that echo parts of the cathedral sized orchestral themes help this immensly. This time the songs also have a coherent progression and reasonable amount of different ideas, unlike the cramped, multistyled messes on Battle Metal. The orchestral arrangements are also much more believable (read: less ridiculous -> better) than on just about any other synthphony metal album thanks to sensible tempo, soundtrack-like harmonic (and sometimes even melodic) progression and rich instrumentation.
 
If most of the songs have brilliant dynamic variance and cohesion, the same can't unfortunately be said for the album as whole. Between some songs there is a nice continuity in the style of the leading melodies without them being straight thematic repetions (which wouldn't be good on an album this short). On the other hand the songs that attempt to break away from this line end up sounding out of place. This really harms the sense of journey in the albums "story" at the middle, which in turn makes the whole album sound a bit rushed, like they just didn't have the time or energy to recount the whole adventure. But even if the story is short and fragmented into individual moments, at least many of those moments are hair-raisingly impressive and genuinely emotional.