Wintersun is a brand new one-man project by former Ensiferum vocalist/guitarist Jari Mäenpää. The reason he quit Ensiferum was to be able to concentrate fully on this project. I liked what he did in Ensiferum and was sad that he left. But now he’s back with Wintersun and I must say I’m impressed. If he continues with Wintersun and releases more albums as good as this one I don’t mind if he’s not in Ensiferum anymore. Mäenpää does all the vocals and play all the instruments except for the drums, which are played by session member Kai Hahto from Finnish grindcore band Rotten Sound.

Upon a first listen this album sounds like it could be the 3rd Ensiferum album but I guess that’s because the production and Mäenpää’s voice sound exactly like on the Ensiferum albums. Wintersun is a much faster and more aggressive version of Ensiferum with more focus on athmospheric keyboards instead of folky guitar-melodies. The drumming on this album is superb and couldn’t possibly be much better. It’s fast, creative, precise and it doesn’t take anything away from the overall sound. Mäenpää shows what a kickass guitarist he is and it feels like he’s saved all his best riffs and solos for Wintersun instead of putting them on the new Ensiferum album. Some of the solos sound very neo-classical and perhaps like something Alexi Laiho would play. The keyboards are played in the background giving Wintersun that “space-like” athmosphere. Very well done without sounding too cheesy or drowning out the other instruments like in some bands. Jari Mäenpää uses many different voices on this album. Everything from growls and whispers to clean singing, shouting and background choirs. Very impressive and original, I can’t believe he did it all by himself.

The album consists of 8 tracks with 5 of them being about 7mins or longer. The songs are very well-written and each track is a killer. It’s safe to say that Mäenpää has put a lot of effort into making his Wintersun-project as good as possible. I really like this album and it’s one of the best one man projects I’ve ever heard. This album should be in every metalhead’s collection!

[This review was first published on the now defunct scandinavianmetal.info webzine]