Metal Storm logo
Wolfheart - Tyhjyys review




Bandcamp music player
Reviewer:
8.5

248 users:
8.17
Band: Wolfheart
Album: Tyhjyys
Release date: March 2017


01. Shores Of The Lake Simpele
02. Boneyard
03. World On Fire
04. The Flood
05. The Rift
06. Call Of The Winter
07. Dead White
08. Tyhjyys

Fan boy disclaimer: I love this band. Now that it is out of the way and I won't dwell on the fact that I still listen to Shadow World weekly, let me bring my unbiased opinion of the latest Wolfheart, which is the fully formed brainchild of Tuomas Saukkonen. The Finnish band has made ripples on the great lake of melodic death metal since its inception with a sound self-proclaimed as winter metal, which is an aggressively energy-packed form of Gothenburg metal with themes about nature. It so happened that I started formulating this review as I was trekking through Montreal, Canada by -25C so I am no stranger to winter and the power of nature.

Tyhjyys, which is Finnish for "emptiness", continues the tradition of Nordic sounding melodic death bands from Finland such as Insomnium and Omnium Gatherum. Fast and furious tracks with great atmosphere and power-laden melodies are the band forte and they deliver their best effort to date with this album. While it may only be 45 minutes long, it has the strength of a wooly mammoth and the element of surprise of a winter storm. Tuomas strong growls dominate the songs but at the same time they leave room for expression for all the other musicians.

While Wolfheart is led by Tuomas Saukkonen, the universal truth about great musicians being the ones able to surround themselves with great performers is once again proven true. Joonas "Jonttu" Kauppinen is killing at drums with his technical progressive touch. Mika Lammassaari on guitars is the perfect complement to Tuomas with his off-beat solos and timed-to-perfection strumming. Lauri Silvonen is bringing the doom into these songs with his unique toned-down bass guitar style.

There are some old school In Flames acoustic guitars on tracks such as the grand opener "Shores of the Lake Simple" and "The Flood" that reconnect with the past of the genre. Otherwise, the album is very much of this decade, in terms of production and sound. The clarity of the guitars and drums in the mixing is astounding.

Tyhjyys is anything but empty. There is a clear direction on this album, and it's definitely up and away from anything negative in life. The songs are intense, well-rounded, modern, with flair and not unkind to the past of the genre. This is going to become a reference album for Wolfheart and for fans of melodic death in general.


Rating breakdown
Performance: 9
Songwriting: 8
Originality: 7
Production: 9





Written on 26.03.2017 by Bringing you reviews of quality music and interesting questions such as:

"A picture is worth a thousand words. How many words is a song worth?"

I have only got so much patience and skills, you do the math.


Comments

Comments: 4   Visited by: 220 users
26.03.2017 - 04:08
Rating: 9
bddidier

"I was trekking through Montreal ...." : really? Last time I was there there was a decent metro system and some nice covered galleries to escape the cold.
Anyway, thanks for the review, it is a really good album and it will most certainly end up in my top 10 for 2017.
Loading...
26.03.2017 - 23:11
Rating: 8
Dream Taster
The Enemy Within
Written by bddidier on 26.03.2017 at 04:08

"I was trekking through Montreal ...." : really? Last time I was there there was a decent metro system and some nice covered galleries to escape the cold.

Downtown yes definitely but I was in a different part of town that day :-) It made the winter metal more real.
Loading...
28.03.2017 - 22:05
Bad English
Tage Westerlund
I am not stranger to winter as well, -30¤c is often here, yesterday in mid may we had 5h snow storm and guess what no chaos in graphic what so ever, non was bitching, life goes on
This band works because it Finnish, as you told no stranger to winter and that winter factor, coldness, coolness, polar darkness, is why band works out in such way, there is something in music and his soul, lyrics what he wrotes what make it work even all his old project sounds same, but it works.
----
Life is to short for LOVE, there is many great things to do online !!!

Stormtroopers of Death - ''Speak English or Die''
apos;'
[image]
I better die, because I never will learn speek english, so I choose dieing
Loading...
18.12.2017 - 21:16
Rating: 8
BlankFile

Melodic, powerful.

The Flood is an awsome track.
Loading...

Hits total: 7281 | This month: 16