recently, moonsorrow released an ep called tulimyrsky, featuring a 30 minute song called tulimyrsky, a metallica cover (for whom the bell tolls), two old demos (taistelu pohjolasta and hvergelmir) and a merciless cover (back to north). the main track tulimyrsky can be seen as a sequel to last year’s viides luku: hävitetty. again, it begins with a slow, melodious, mystic atmospheric part, lasting 3:45 minutes, until a scream fades in from far away, guitars and drums kicking in, finally launching a black metal thunderstorm after five minutes, evolving into a stream of brutality, speed, piercing melodies. then, later, the music gets slower, less brutal, still intense. a speaker telling a tale. then, the action returns, sounding heroic, somehow, until it fades out into a beautiful, orchestral and melodic piece of music. beautiful.
the two demos feature pretty black metallic sounds, still very good though. moonsorrow is really one of the bands which started as a success and continued to be a success over the years. finally, the two covers are pretty ok, too. and, tulimyrsky is the longest ep i ever saw, having 68 minutes of playing time, from which 30 minutes are the main song, tulimyrsky. again, probably one of the best releases this year.

the second one this year i attended, to be more precise. this time, in bremen’s tivoli, the so called paganfest tour 2008 launched, featuring the finnish bands ensiferum, korpiklaani and moonsorrow, the swiss band eluveitie, the faroese band týr and local support ctulu.
well. apparently, it’s impossible to start a concert (or even, start letting people in, before they get soaked wet in the rain outside) in time, i.e. the time which was published before. i’m really sorry for the ones who probably have to spend today in bed, being sick. and then, when they started letting people in, they did it in an incredibly slow way. i mean, what the heck, how hard is it to organize such things?
anyway, the local support started playing probably when the first people were let inside, i.e. we missed half of it, and some others probably most or everything (if they didn’t die before). well, anyway, they didn’t missed anything but awful noise. you could replace the singer by a barking dog without changing the result. sorry, this sounds hard, but that’s the truth… well, the sound quality sucked a lot in the beginning anyway, so it’s probably not just the fault of the band… after a short break (the openers played for like 30 mins), týr entered the stage. i was expecting a lot, but was heavily disappointed. it seemed that they also experienced heavy technical problems, so i might try them again once… but then, i’ll try some studio recordings.
anyway. they stopped after like 20 minutes (less than the opener!?) and we took the chance to eat something. after that, swiss pagan metallers eluveitie entered the stage. filling the stage with eight musicians, they are probably the largest (in this sense) band i ever say. eluveitie features a variety of instruments, including lots of different fluetes, vielles, hurdy gurdies, bagpipes, uilleann pipes and bodhráns. i also was expecting a lot from them, and this time, i was blown away. they are really good. mixing heavy black metal with beautiful folk melodies and themes, they deliver a complex, hard to digest but extremely beautiful (even though the sound quality still wasn’t too great) stream of music. (now i’m listening to their newest album slania, whose release party in the knochenhaus i missed… it’s definitely worth buying, if you’re wondering.) a very, very sad thing was that eluveitie had to stop after 30 minutes. :-(
then, after another break, moonsorrow started playing. as you may know, moonsorrow is one of my favorite bands, so i was expecting a lot. well, they were good as usual, but this time i didn’t like the songs they selected too much. one of the songs sounded quite unknown to me, maybe it’s from the ep which will be released soon? well, sounded a bit too black metallish for my taste. at least, they could play for 45 minutes… still, way too short, but better than just 30 mins… (hey, really, which idiot got the idea to restrict great bands such as eluveitie and moonsorrow to 30 resp. 45 minutes?!)
after moonsorrow, it was time for korpiklaani, a bunch of guys making “old guy music with heavy metal guitars”. well, after eluveitie and moonsorrow, it became obvious how simple their melodies and songs are, well, of course relatively. anyway, if they would have played earlier i would have liked them more. apparently, they covered a king crimson song, at least so said a friend of mine who knows the king crimson discography by worlds better than me. as moonsorrow, korpiklaani also just played for 45 minutes.
finally, after yet another break, which we spend sitting in the food compartment of the tivoli, ensiferum began conquering the hall. well. they’re really good, but again, in my opionion, moonsorrow and eluveitie are better. at least, their guitarist was feeling better this time, so they played probably for one hour. probably, because we decided we were too tired and had enough after, say, 55 minutes, and after someone working at the tivoli decided to chase us off the stairs where we were sitting (because of some fire regulations, probably)…
anyway. the festival was definitely worth going there. but, the next time, it would be way better if they would reduce the number of bands (to, say, moonsorrow and eluveitie :-) ) and let them play a lot longer!

after making a best of concerts list for this year, i decided to make a best of albums list for all albums i have bought until now. i divided this up into several categories:

• prog;
• punk/punk rock;
• trip hop, alt rock;
• other non-metal;
• metal: atmospheric;
• metal: death/black;
• metal: doom;
• metal: extreme prog;
• metal: folk/pagan/viking;
• metal: gothic;
• metal: power;
• metal: prog;
• metal: other.

note that this list reflects a snapshot of my current interest and remembrance of most of the albums. it could already be different in a few days. but feel free to comment or discuss this with me.

prog.

1. porcupine tree: deadwing.
2. pure reason revolution: the dark third.
3. frost: milliontown.
4. opeth: damnation.
5. porcupine tree: the sky moves sideways.

punk/punk rock.

1. die ärzte: die bestie in menschengestalt.
2. wizo: uuaarrgh!.
3. die toten hosen: kauf mich!.
4. die ärzte: planet punk.
5. die ärzte: 13.

trip hop, alt rock.

1. kari rueslåtten: other people’s stories.
2. radiohead: ok computer.
3. portishead: portishead.

other non-metal.

1. kari rueslåtten: spindelsinn.
2. nine inch nails: the downward spiral.
3. eläkeläiset: humppasirkus.
4. bohren & der club of gore: black earth.

metal: atmospheric.

1. the 3rd and the mortal: tears laid in earth.
2. finntroll: visor om slutet.
3. tool: 10 000 days.
4. anathema: a natural disaster.

metal: death/black.

note that i took out the prog death/prog black (avantgarde) albums into its own category, called metal: extreme prog.

1. bolt thrower: those once loyal.
2. moonspell: the antidote.
3. wintersun: wintersun.
4. amorphis: elipse.
5. childen of bodom: hatebreeder.

metal: doom.

i think this is the category where i could have made the longest list. there are many really good albums missing, for example down and love and death by sentenced, the other swallow the sun albums, sunn o))) and boris‘ altar, some candlemass albums, unholy‘s the second ring of power, and some more.

1. sentenced: frozen
2. swallow the sun: ghosts of loss.
3. type o negative: world coming down.
4. tiamat: prey.
5. unholy: rapture.

metal: extreme prog.

this category is dominated by opeth; therefore, i decided to list the top seven instead of the top five.

1. opeth: still life.
2. orphaned land: mabool — the story of the three sons of seven.
3. opeth: blackwater park.
4. distorted: memorial.
5. opeth: orchid.
6. borknagar: epic.
7. edge of sanity: crimson (part one).

metal: folk/pagan/viking.

1. moonsorrow: viides luku: hävitetty.
2. moonsorrow: verisäkeet.
3. primordial: to the nameless dead.
4. finntroll: jaktens tid.
5. moonsorrow: voimasta ja kunniasta.

metal: gothic.

1. lacuna coil: karma code.
2. tristania: beyond the veil.
3. lake of tears: a crimson cosmos.
4. poisonblack: lust stained despair.

metal: power.

1. nevermore: dead heart in a dead world.
2. nevermore: dreaming neon black.
3. symphony x: paradise lost.
4. communic: waves of visual decay.
5. nightwish: oceanborn.

metal: prog.

1. dream theater: train of thought.
2. the gathering: mandylion.
3. ayreon: the human equation.
4. dream theater: metropolis pt. 2 — scenes from a memory.
5. dream theater: images and words.

metal: other.

1. timo rautiainen & trio niskalaukaus: hartes land.
2. rage: lingua mortis.
3. samael: solar soul.
4. annihilator: king of the kill.
5. apocalyptica: cult.

i think it’s time to take a look at the list of concerts i attended this year and to list the best ones. at these two links, you can find a pretty complete list of the concerts i attended. i decided to divide the top list into two categories: prog and metal.

prog

for the third place, i cannot decide between three concerts, all which took place in pratteln in the z-7, namely, first, the spock’s beard gig on the 16.05.2007, second, the anathema & moondawn gig on the 31.05.2007, and, third, the fish gig on the 27.11.2007. all three gigs have been very good. most memorable was probably spock’s beard keyboardist, playing with both hands and feet, while his poor technician had to hold the keyboard construction together so it wouldn’t fall apart.

the second place goes to the blackfield & pure reason revolution concert, which took place on the 24.02.2007 in pratteln (z-7). i think this was the first concert where i really liked the opener, so much that i bought one of their albums. actually, i had to order it by mail, as the ones they had with them were sold out at the end of their concert (hence, i wasn’t the only one who liked it alot). the main act itself, blackfield, a collaboration between the porcupine tree frontman steven wilson and the israeli rock star aviv geffen, was also really good.

the first place goes to the porcupine tree & anathema concert, which took place on the 12.11.2007 in zürich (volkshaus). despite several people in the audience didn’t like anathema too much (“too boring”), i was pleased to see them again. for me, their music expresses simply too many emotions to be boring, eating up energy until bursting into the listener’s ear. the main act, porcupine tree, one of my favorite bands, was as good as i expected them to be. even though they played a lot from the current album, fear of a blank planet, which i don’t like as much as some of the older ones, they also played many classics. unfortunately, they didn’t played arriving somewhere but not here, which i would really loved to listen to. but, besides that, i still think this is the best prog concert i attended this year.

metal

again, as before, i cannot decide on someone for the third place, but i have two canidates in mind. the first one is the dream theater & symphony x concert, which took place on the 31.10.2007 in winterthur (eulachhallen). the second canidate is the apocalyptica & sturm und drang concert, which took place on the 09.11.2007 in zürich (volkshaus). all these bands are really good, and the shows they delivered were so, too, featuring many small details, as neat decoration. but both of these concerts also have their sides. namely, symphony x played way too short (but then, i’ll see them again next february as headliner), the location was strange (the wardrobe was outside), and dream theater could have played longer, too (i heard the rumor that the local organizer fucked this up by not registering the concert with the authorities, which in turn resulted in the police ordering the concert to be ended earlier). at the apocalyptica concert, i didn’t like the opener sturm und drang too much; they played really good and professional, but it simply wasn’t the kind of music which i really like.

the second place is filled by the amorphis, swallow the sun & insomnium concert, which took place at the 18.11.2007 in pratteln (z-7). (videos from the concert can be found here.) this concert featured three very good finnish bands, one of them, namely swallow the sun, being one of my favorite ones. their shows were good, the selection of songs was, too (i would have loved to hear some more swallow the sun songs, but then, i would probably have only been really pleased if they would have simply played all songs from their three albums, which is slightly unrealistic to expect from a co-headliner). i was headbanging a lot, met some friends, had a lot of fun.

the first place goes to the moonsorrow & swallow the sun concert, which took place at the 09.04.2007 (easter monday) in pratteln (z-7). actually, there was a third band playing as an opener, whose name i forgot. this concert was one of the most incluencal concert for me this year, not only as it introduced me to two bands, namely moonsorrow and swallow the sun, which i now count as two of my most favorite bands. besides that, the atmosphere was simply perfect, and so was the audience. i still remember headbanging with eric (a guy i met on this concert and on another one a bit later, who’s also an opeth fan), even though headbanging right next to the mosh pit can be pretty painful…

today i’ve been attending a festival in dietikon, eight bands playing in 9 1/2 hours. out of these eight bands, two were crap, and five were pretty good (finsterforst, trimonium, kivimetsan druidi, korpiklaani and moonsorrow), which made this festival quite a success. my two absolute favorites today were korpiklaani and moonsorrow, two finnish bands which were the main reason for me to show up at the festival after all.

the finnish humppa metallers korpiklaani entered the stage as the seventh band. as they started playing, the crowd basically went wild, everyone starting to move, to dance. it was simply amazing. the idea to combine humppa with metal is simply great. and they also played happy little boozer, to which a friend of mine once wants to dance drunken on a table (if you’re reading this: you missed a great concert!). unfortunately, korpiklaani had to leave the stage after one hour… i really want to see them again, and then a bit longer…

finally, as the eight band, moonsorrow—one of my favorite bands—appeared on stage. for 80 minutes. and even after the crowd has already been active for around eight hours of concerts (my bones were hurting, my neck aching, my brain complaining, my feet weary), people still managed to adequately honour the great music and stage performance by banging like crazy, by dancing to the great tunes. it was simply fantastic. unfortunately, it was over at some point. too bad.

conclusions:

• one should kick the sucking bands out of the schedule and increase the playing time of the best ones.
• one should replace the mixer by someone who more successfully tries to compensate the bad accoustics of the hall and does not simply makes it worse by fucking up the mixing…
• humppa rocks.
• moonsorrow rocks even more. (regardless what the bavarian guy is saying.)

and now, it’s time to grab some sleep. thank you and good night.

my first contact with moonsorrow was on the 9th of april this year, when they were playing at the z-7 in pratteln. i didn’t knew them before, but i was told that i might like them. well. i did. after the concert, i decided i had to buy one of their albums, namely viides luku: hävitetty, which is finnish and means chapter five: ravaged, being their fifth album, and i immediately listened to it when i came home after the concert. less than two weeks later i also had the rest of their albums lying on my desk.
simlarly to finntroll’s visor om slutet, v: hävitetty is a very special album. consisting of just two tracks, each having around 30 minutes of music, it builds up an intense atmosphere throwing you back into the old times, when vikings were sailing the northern seas. in contrast to visor om slutet, most of this album is heavy, very heavy, transporting a completely different mood. the first six minutes of the first track can be seen as a separate song, called jäästä syntynyt (born of ice), a very atmospheric, slow, dreamy piece, featuring a short poem:

“auringon kuoleman syntyäkseen
uusi maailma tarvitsee
vain pisaran vettä kylmyyteen
käsillä juoksemaan ihmisten”

which translates to:

“through the death of the sun
a new world is born
a drop of water in cold
to run on the hands of man”

other bands would let this be a whole song.
after this, a twenty-five minutes long heavy sound scape named varjojen virta (stream of shadows) breaks loose on the listener, never being boring, recurring motifs varied, always melodic, sometimes a bit slower, mostly fast, screaming. closing my eyes, i can see vast landscapes and seascapes, raging storms, ships fighting the rough sea, endless forests, fog, darkness, bleak lives, people dying, battles raging. the music makes me want to move, it’s so intense, so beautiful, intoxicating. the lyrics are in finnish, with an english translation being provided in the booklet, allowing to enrich the experience, putting more emotions and emphasis into the music. they transport dreary feelings, are depressing, make me shiver. beautiful, in some sense, sorrowful, in another.
the second song on this album, tuleen ajettu maa, which means a land driven into the fire, begins with shaman chants, quickly progressing to heavy riffs, screams. similarly to varjojen virta, this sound scape is intense, dense, heavy, varying between more silent, folkish parts, many heavy parts, black metal thunderstorms, forming a fascinating masterpiece.
this one feels similarly depressing, bleak, even more aggressive. i can see boats floating, shaking on rough water, the sea trying to swallow the boats, i can see battles, fights, man against man, dying and dead people, the distinction between victor and loser being that one is dead, whereas the other is dying. skimming through the lyrics, i read as the last verse:

“näin kaikki päättyy, näen sen nyt
tämä sivu on viimeinen
näin kaikki päättyy, tyhjään ja unohdukseen
eikä kukaan tänne palaa”

translating to:

“this is how it ends, i can see it now
this page will be the last
this is how it ends, to emptiness, to oblivion
and none will ever return”

this is what the music makes me feel. makes me see, makes me think about, when i listen to it.

here’s a list of concerts i’ve been at this year, for historical reasons. not taking in account some classic concerts.

• 07.02.2007: therion, grave digger and sabaton were playing at the z-7 in pratteln (symphonic orchestral metal, and some more thrashy/whatever metal);
• 21.02.2007: amplifier and cloudride were playing at abart in zürich (progressive art rock);
• 24.02.2007: blackfield and pure reason revolution were playing at the z-7 in pratteln (progressive rock, art rock);
• 04.03.2007: …and you will know us by the trail of dead and forget cassettes were playing at the rote fabrik in zürich (alternative rock);
• 29.03.2007: morgana lefay, sacred steel, serenity and bitterness were playing at rock city in uster (various kinds of metal: death, prog, power, true, …);
• 09.04.2007: moonsorrow, swallow the sun and some band whose name i forgot played at the z-7 in pratteln (pagan metal, doom metal, death metal);
• 10.04.2007: circle ii circle, savage circus, tomorrow’s eve and tempesta were playing at the z-7 in pratteln (metal);
• 13.04.2007: moonspell, napalm death, behemoth, gojira and dew scented were playing at the z-7 in pratteln (death and black metal, metalcore);
• 16.05.2007: spock’s beard was playing at the z-7 in pratteln (progressive rock);
• 27.05.2007: trivium, annihilator and some band which was playing before the official opening time were playing at the rohstofflager in zürich (thrash metal);
• 29.05.2007: arena was playing at the z-7 in pratteln (progressive rock);
• 31.05.2007: anathema and moondawn were playing at the z-7 in pratteln (atmospheric rock with metal influences);
• 01.06.2007: machine head, type o negative, cataract and zatokrev were playing at the volkshaus in zürich (thrash metal, doom metal, metalcore and death metal);
• 27.06.2007: dream theater and megadeth were playing at the volkshaus in zürich (progressive metal, thrash metal).

if i’ll find the motivation (and if anyone cares), i might write a few words about some of these.

here’s a list of concerts i plan to attend during the last four months of this year. if i put a link to a bands’ homepage, this means i’m going to that concert to see this band (and as a side effect, also the non-linked ones).

• 13.09.2007: threshold, communic, machine men and serenity are playing in the z-7 in pratteln (progressive metal);
• 22.09.2007: fjoergyn, wolfchant, nastrandir und nuclear winter are playing in the dynamo in zurich (symphonic black/pagan/viking/death metal);
• 27.10.2007: moonsorrow, korpiklaani, excelsis and battlelore are playing at the viking/pagan festival in the stadthalle dietikon (folk/pagan metal);
• 31.10.2007: dream theater and symphony x are playing in the eulachhallen in winterthur (progressive metal);
• 09.11.2007: apocalyptica (with special guest not announced yet) is playing in the volkshaus in zürich (violin metal);
• 12.11.2007: porcupine tree and anathema are playing in the volkshaus in zürich (prog, atmospheric rock with metal influences);
• 16.11.2007: orchester accento musicale zürich is playing in the st. peter in zürich (classic);
• 17.11.2007: boob is playing in the helsinki klub in zürich (alternative/punk rock);
• 18.11.2007: amorphis, swallow the sun and insomnium are playing in the z-7 in pratteln (prog metal, doom metal);
• 27.11.2007: fish is playing in the z-7 in pratteln (progressive rock);
• 29.11.2007: halloween, gamma ray and axxis are playing in the stadthalle dietikon (power metal); (skipping that one because of lack of time)
• 05.12.2007: die ärzte are playing in the hallenstadion in oerlikon/zürich (fun punk);
• 14.12.2007: ensiferum, turisas and insania are playing in the z-7 in pratteln (viking metal).

unfortunately, i will miss finntroll playing in the z-7 on 05.12.2007…