Fuck the contractual obligations, I want it now!
I'm joking, I just hope in a killer album (without Jari... )

This sucks! Oh well, I am not as pissed about the delay as I would have been if Jari were still there. Jari is God!

Argh dammit!

Damn I waited so long. Well, an other two months isn't gonna kill me.

That's to bad, we have to wait longer...

At least we don't have to wait this long for a new Wintersun album!

damn, this sucks
but if it's a killer album like they say, then I'll wait for it

ggggggggggggggggg

I listened to the promo 4-5 times now and I think it's awesome, even without Jari. The new album is worth the wait.

Damn, that sucks for them. Seeing as the album already leaked, such change of the official release can fuck up their sales.

Looks like we'll just have to sit it out a little while longer. As long as it's released, all will be fine

If not, then society will pay

frick. I was really looking forward to it. more waiting grrrrrr.

Written by Guest on 15.02.2007 at 00:08

Damn, that sucks for them. Seeing as the album already leaked, such change of the official release can fuck up their sales.

I'm sure that the real fans of the band like myself will buy the new CD as soon as it hits the market.

So if you are a true fan, support the band and buy the album!!! It's worth every f..king cent of it.

I listened to the album several times... it's definietely not worth the money... let alone mental breakdown I'd get by continuing my philology studies, getting a job and having no time to play guitar xD
I'm simply broke atm :p
Though as soon as I move to Norway or Denmark I'll surely buy it. Hopefully they'll be able to make a living until they receive my precious money

Seriously though, the album is somewhat boring. Many people will forget about it before it hits the stores.

with respect, fucking bullshit mate! don't listen to this guy who obviously hasn't given the album a proper listening as he has other things on his mind he rightly puts first! i can be silent no more, this album is well worth buying! absolutely fantastic album, many catchy choruses, riffs and folk melodies to be had, and the whole thing feels a lot more epic than anything they've ever done before (especially the title track that's a wonderful 10 minutes long), i may just sound like i'm over-excited by the thrill of a new ensiferum album... but i'm not! this album is far from being boring. And GGFH i agree with you, it should make no difference (haha, SHOULD) that the album has leaked, I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't buy this, as should all other fans feel, especially as this won't disappoint (unless you only listened to ensiferum for jari's sweeps)

jari who??

Ehe, look dude. I said this before and I'll say it again: I'm sure Norther fans will love this album. The thing is as far as folk/viking genre goes, the album is poor. You may not realise it but there are numerous bands on the scene that do same thing, only better. What made Ensiferum special were the splendid guitars, which are definitely lacking in most of the folk metal scene. With the release of the new album, Ensiferum lost what it was special at.
Asmegin has superb vocals. Manegarm has impressive strength. Moonsorrow has epic atmosphere. Falkenbach has that symphonic touch to it. Turisas has powerful folk instrumentalization. Ensiferum had sweet guitars.
Now Ensiferum has casual guitars, growls of poor quality, cool cleans (but not nearly as good as Asmegin's or Manegarm's), synths and catchy folk tunes. This doesn't elevate Ensiferum to the level of greatest folk metal bands.
So to conclude - what Ensiferum released has been done by many other bands before, with the exception that they did it better. The new album is uninspired. It's just generic folk/viking metal album. Listen to Turisas' Battle Metal and then come back to this release and you should know what I mean.

However, as I already said
I'm sure people who aren't all that familiar with folk/viking metal scene will find this to be a great release

Written by Guest on 16.02.2007 at 21:02

So to conclude - what Ensiferum released has been done by many other bands before, with the exception that they did it better. The new album is uninspired. It's just generic folk/viking metal album. Listen to Turisas' Battle Metal and then come back to this release and you should know what I mean.

However, as I already said
I'm sure people who aren't all that familiar with folk/viking metal scene will find this to be a great release

Elitism ftw!
And I know enough Viking metal elitists who would say that Turisas are Viking metal for kids :

And judging from the single I must admit I'm positively surprised by Petri Laiho. I thought Ensiferum would go down with him replacing Jari, but the vocals are surprisingly good and the overall sound has been preserved. If the album is in the same vein I don't think I'd regret Jari having left Ensiferum.

Written by Promonex on 17.02.2007 at 12:56

Written by Guest on 16.02.2007 at 21:02

So to conclude - what Ensiferum released has been done by many other bands before, with the exception that they did it better. The new album is uninspired. It's just generic folk/viking metal album. Listen to Turisas' Battle Metal and then come back to this release and you should know what I mean.

However, as I already said
I'm sure people who aren't all that familiar with folk/viking metal scene will find this to be a great release

Elitism ftw!
And I know enough Viking metal elitists who would say that Turisas are Viking metal for kids :

And judging from the single I must admit I'm positively surprised by Petri Laiho. I thought Ensiferum would go down with him replacing Jari, but the vocals are surprisingly good and the overall sound has been preserved. If the album is in the same vein I don't think I'd regret Jari having left Ensiferum.

Don't you mean Petri Lindroos?

Written by Promonex on 17.02.2007 at 12:56

Elitism ftw!

What the hell does anything from what I said have to do with elitism?
If people aren't familiar with the scene, they will find the album refreashing, even though it's not anything new and not quite of high quality. That's something outraging now? Maybe I'm discovering America here?

It's not a bad album (if you forget about the complete lack of emotion in singing), but most definietely not a 10/10. Many other folk bands have much more impressive releases, but can only dream of the sales Ensiferum will meet with this one, only because of their previously earned popularity.

Written by Guest on 17.02.2007 at 13:49

Don't you mean Petri Lindroos?

Argh yea, of course. My bad ^^

@Skald: That's just how the music business works. Has Equilibrium brought anything new to Viking Metal? All they did was investing enough money to make a professional demo, and after just one album they are on Nuclear Blast already. Basically they just ripped off Menhir, but have probably earned already more money than said creators of the German pagan metal scene in their entire career. You can't blame people for liking them, but you can blame the other bands for not investing as much into promotion. Basically anything sells nowadays if only the promotion is done right.

And no, you didn't say that people not familiar with the scene will find it refreshing, but will find it good and thus that people who are familiar with the scene would not enjoy it. It doesn't need innovation to make good music (just like Equilibrium), in the contrary too much innovation won't serve either when it comes to music dedicated to ancient times. I'm not complaining about you not finding it refreshing, but rather that you said that people not familiar with the scene would enjoy it, thus that people familiar with it are likely not to enjoy it. The logical conclusion is: "If you like this album, you don't know shit about Viking metal," which obviously is an elitist attitude.

Now there's some flawed logic.

Quote:
but will find it good and thus that people who are familiar with the scene would not enjoy it.

What exactly is the word "thus" doing there? Basically your logic is as follows: "People who are familiar with the scene won't enjoy it, because people who aren't familiar with it - will". I don't see a tiniest bit of sense in such conclusion; I do however find sense in this logic:

Ensiferum's latest release is very generic folk/viking metal. Therefore:
- fans of other genres will find it refreashing, due to not being familiar with this style (ergo "will find this to be a great release").
- people who are already used to this style can find it too generic and might be disappointed by it.

Quote:
I'm not complaining about you not finding it refreshing

Yes, yes you do. Scroll up this discussion. It started with myself saying I don't find this album to be worth the money (and I believe this to be right conclusion, seeing as other more inspired works actually cost the same money). Later for this it has been stated that I talk bullshit. I replied with detailed post explaining that I did give it a proper listen and showed where the difference of opinion comes from. Then decided to underline somehow that I don't mean to say everyone will hate it just because I was dissapointed about it. So I wrote what I wrote to avoid further confusion... Which apparently made me the hardcore elitist.

And by the way, I always stated Ensiferum (even when Jari was in) and Equilibrium are two seriously overrated bands. And from what I see, the Equilibrium hype actually went way down.

@ skald, I'm not new to this genre mate, folk/viking metal is my favourite genre, I play in a goddamn folk metal band! I listen to ensiferum, turisas, moonsorrow, finntroll, tyr, thyfing, korpiklaani (though I can't say I've heard much falkenbach) and many more! And I thoroughly enjoyed this release (so do my band mates who are just as familiar with folk/viking metal), I didn't think the guitar parts were boring, and to say the clean vocals lack emotion... just listen to wanderer, what a beautiful song! I never said that this was the greatest folk/viking metal album made, but i have to say that i really enjoy this album, it's harldy a pale shadow of turisas, i don't like comparing battle metal to ensiferum albums anyway, the mood you get from battle metal is very different from an ensiferum album. So you don't like it, that's fine with me :-) but this album is quite a way above the generic level. I expected change from ensiferum, but there's still that voice in my head saying "oh yea, that's ensiferum" when I hear it.

Actually, I love Wanderer and that song already got pretty high on my last.fm chart (apparently 72 listens right now), but the vocals could be much better on that one either. I can imagine what the song would sound like if they added more passion to the singing. The way it is it seems to me like they just took the text, learnt to sing it and simply recorded it. Pure showbusiness, no art (but the style still makes it good). I have much better impression of Lady in Black, which actually does convey some passion (and even though the vocals aren't of best quality, it certainly gives them that folky feeling).
But well, either the vocals lack emotions, or all songs are about exactly same thing. Because Petri sings in the same way throughout the entire album (besides One More Magic Potion - I think he did pretty well on that one)
Though I stand corrected then. I see you're deeper (well I cannot judge that by the bands you mentioned, but certainly "into") into the folky stuff, but all folk/viking metal fans I know certainly weren't impressed by the release, so I'm surprised none the less.

Yea I agree with you on petri's vocals, though it seems they bother you more than they bother me. Ah well, seems this album is gonna get mixed reviews, and I can see why, I'm not closed to the opinion that everyone should like this album! It would be interesting to hear markus toivonen talk in detail about the album.

I'm bothered about them just on the album though. I do like Norther (but I can get bored with it as well) and Dragonheads is my second favorite Ensiferum song. And it really gave me high hopes on the incoming album, even though everyone around seemed to bash it. Well, I joined the dark side, I guess, eh? :[

Haha :-P. Yea Dragonheads is a great song (what's your favourite Ensiferum song then?), but I didn't take it as a guideline to what to expect on victory songs as from my experience the quality or style of music on an EP is little help when contemplating what the next LP's gonna be like, I was more distracted by the fact that Oliver Fokin and Jari had left, obviously both had a great impact on Ensiferum's sound, so I really didn't know what to expect and was prepared for a new direction, but really the direction hasn't changed that much, of course Jari's wonderful vocals are gone and Oliver's double bass rythms, but I still felt an Ensiferum vibe about it.

My favorite Ensiferum song (and I think all-time favorite song in general) is Lai Lai Hei. I love its variety, its vocals, its rhythms, its melody, its solo and its "lai lai hei" (:p). Just perfect.

To be honest I had good expectations of the upcoming album, because I found Petri's vocals to be quite refreashing for Ensiferum's sound (the irony, eh?). And I do believe Petri has much potential in the band, I just don't think he really reached it on that particular release.

Oh yes, Lai Lai Hei is my favourite too, it really is perfect!

I absolutely agree with you about Petri. Actually I noticed that on Dragonheads Petri raises the tone of his shrieks compared to what he usually uses and he's lowered them again for Victory Songs. Anyway, I'm getting quite concerned that people will get annoyed with us having a conversation straying off-topic and talking about the album before it's release! Good talking to you though :-)

(sorry, folks!)

@Skald, Death-Unlimited, Promonex
Hi, guys!
I really enjoyed reading your comments on the new ensiferum album, and to be honest I never tried to do such a thorough analysis of an album in my whole life.
What I try to say is that I judge an album by the impression and the feelings I get from listening to it. That's how I either love it or dislike it or I am somewhere in between. I think that a listener can make his/her own decision and does not need anybody else's opinion. I love all ensiferum releases and almost all their songs and honestly Lai Lai Hei is definitely not my favourite one. So again, I think it is a very individual feeling what you like and what you don't.
Let people vote and decide if this is a worthy release or not!

I just listened to the new album, I just couldnt wait any longer....But I will definitely buy it, because it's awesome...Even though Jari left, the band's particular sound is still there .I like this release at least as their previous ones.Still Lai Lai Hei remains my all time favourite Ensiferum song (among many others )
So about that vote: YES, it's a worthy release !