Band: Winterborn
Album title: Farewell To Saints
Label: Massacre
Distributor: Suburban
Release date: 24/04/2009
Release: CD

As mentioned in my review (posted 06/12/2006) of their debut album Cold Reality (heralded by media worldwide, some claiming it to be one of the most remarkable debut albums of a band from Finland since Sonata Artica’s Ecliptica), this band from the town of Kokkola in Finland was able to promote their album in Europe thanks to a tour in support of Doro and Benedictum. The guys couldn’t be happier: thanks to the positive reviews and this tour, fan numbers were increasing steadily, especially in Central Europe!

In early 2007 the boys did only a few gigs, started writing new songs, fired their management, and eventually started recording new material with Pasi Kaupinnen (who’d already worked with ‘em on their debut album). Trouble came in September when Winterborn saw itself forced to fire bassist Janne Suvanto. His replacement was however swiftly found in Kaupinnen (already a rounded musician, having played/ playing with Mental Care Foundation, Requiem, and Silent Voices), but then a renovation to their recording studio and changed schedules made that the recordings weren’t finished before May 2008. In between, more line-up changes came when original drummer Rami Heikkilä had to go in March 2008. He was duely replaced by one Lauri Bexar. Adding to that, second guitarist Antti Hokkala was recruited to complete the live sound…with the necessary delays that brought to break in the new band members!

The album was already thrown on the Metal market in Japan (through Avalon/ Marquee) in November 2008…and for non-understandable reasons the European release had to wait more than 6 months to happen! I mean, even if the label/band first wanted to concentrate on Japan for things to happen, there’s only so many places to play over there, you can easily have toured the whole archipel in a mere four weeks! Nah, to me it rather looks like a lack of faith from in Winterborn’s new material, or the commerciability of music in general (everybody knows there’s been a “crisis” going on in the music business for yéars now, and with the current worldwide economical crisis, that word is used so often as an excuse these days…) from the part of the label, wouldn’t you agree…even when they go about putting something like “…With the album and live shows Winterborn will prove that they belong to the elite of Heavy Metal bands…” as the finale of their promo talk? The truth is, European record labels don’t like to release albums outside the (Summer) festival seasons anymore, their band’s appearances at such events securing sales figures to a certain extend. You know, because the fans are out there on the festivals a lot (and not at home behind their computers), they have less time to start downloading illegally off the Internet, so they often buy albums of the bands they like right there and then, at the festivals!

I mean, of coùrse Winterborn belong to a certain elite group of Heavy Metal bands! Their music is a perfect blending of elements from Progressive Heavy Metal, movie soundtracks, Classical music, Big Band, Jazz, and Pop, expressed quite diversely in both faster paced tracks (the pace itself giving the music a Symphonic Power Metal flair), as well as ballads (the beautiful “Overture 1939”, which can be seen as an opening to the ensuing “The Winter War” – gréat idea to put in that spoken word bit in there) and semi-ballads (check the great “Emptiness Inside”)! On top of it all, there’s the very good and diverse vocals by lead singer Teemu Koskela, nicely backed up (with lots of harmonic parts) by everyone else in the band except the drummer. One advantage for the European music fan, with the album already out that long in Japan, is that the band has already posted several tracks off the new album on their MySpace (.com/winterbornband)page, where you’ll find no less than 4 of the 10 songs on the album posted! This regrettably does not include the mentioned ballad, but then you dó get the really diverse album closer “Another World”, an epic 10 ½ minute track which goes through a variety of mood changes…and really shows the band at its best! As far as I’m concerned, I think it’s a spot of genius to end the album that way! To change the subject on the lyrics…IS there a conceptual thread running through the album? The song titles (“Black Rain”, “Chaos Dwell Within”, “Land Of The Free”, “Last Man Standing”) alone already suggest something like that, and the aforementioned coupling (“Overture 1939” and “The Winter  War”) certainly strengthen that feeling…but I failed to recognize what the underlaying red string actually was).

Anyway, a very nice album, but even if Winterborn belongs to “an elite of Heavy Metal bands” (a concept which I will certainly support), I cannot put myself to nominating Farewell To Saints into my 2009 year-lists. To begin with, the album was actually released làst year, now wasn’t it…but also it doesn’t really have the qualities needed. Of course, those among you who were already charmed by the band’s debut album and have become dire fans of the band, are totally free to feel differently about that! Still, because I feel that epic album closer to be a positive progression for the band, this album gets higher points compared to the debut!

91/100