Moonsorrow
Verisäkeet

THE REVIEW

Do you think Viking music is the exclusive domain of bands like Ensiferum, Amon Amarth, Borknagar, and the like?
You are gravely mistaken, and, specifically, it would be necessary to at least reevaluate the value of these aforementioned, albeit excellent bands. Yes, because their primacy is now challenged by these five Finnish artists, whose moniker "Moonsorrow" was more apt than ever.

Their music is a fascinating and never banal blend of Black Metal from the most feral and minimal school, taking inspiration, among others, for example, from early Emperor and Burzum, and mixing it with skillful malice and epicness with a truly breathtaking Norse folklore. If you then add that Moonsorrow, evidently aware of the now almost cliché lesson that to compose great music you don't just need to press the accelerator pedal or perhaps inject Power between heavy parts, but above all, you need "emotion", then it's game over, and in your hands, if you have the fortune and the good will to acquire it, when you listen to this "Verisäkeet" (which means "verses of blood"), you will be enthralled, as long as you are enchanted by the Nordic landscapes, the frozen and desolately deserted lands, the ghosts that move at the edge of the forests in the boreal night, etc. etc.

However, perhaps even for those not so accustomed to these things, this album might seem an excellent example of intelligence, attachment to one's land and culture, and inventiveness of solutions that are never boring and never tiring, even though the album's length, about seventy minutes for just five tracks, might raise suspicion. But, in this case, nothing could be more wrong or misleading: all five pieces are structured in a majestic and intricate way, with frequent "bayonet" attacks but never chaotic, while dipping their "dark sense" in Black Metal, albeit diluting and transforming it into long and epic sagas, where getting lost in those aforementioned landscapes and atmospheres is a must, and the beauty is that, furthermore, having the music a huge stature and impressive and valid weight, it's not even too difficult to focus on it or listen to it who knows how many times: the notes will capture you immediately, without you being able to resist, leaving you only to be suffocated by the high tragic tension that is the leitmotif of the album and then hanging on to the wings of the great ancestral journey offered by Moonsorrow.

Crow cawing, wind whistling, acoustic guitars played with an intense and poignant frequency that align with dark sighs in the blinding mist of endless winters, the crackling fire, with its flames licking the cold air making it their slave; at times, the hysterical and acid scream of Ville Sorvali which only emphasizes the fear, the sadness, the catastrophe of people accustomed to fighting valiantly who saw their culture and their "Ancient Customs" defrauded by foreign peoples, in times not even remembered in writing anymore, that only a caste of elect, people animated by a "high" and deep sense of their roots intend to perpetuate.
I do not say that Moonsorrow are among these, but certainly the intensity, the vibrant and tragic passion, the apocalyptic epicness they pour into these five tracks, could certainly suggest that "all is not lost, that the fight is not yet over."

What else can I tell you to convince you to buy, to obtain this album in any way possible?
It would be pointless to talk to you about each song, only because I wouldn't want to take away the enormous and disconcerting surprise you might discover by listening to it, so I rely on the trust and good will of those who want to try it, and I am sure, convinced indeed, you will not be disappointed. Moonsorrow, a promise. For good reason, I believe that very soon they will be heard of more than they already are plentifully.