Voimasta ja Kunniasta

Voimasta ja Kunniasta arrives like a column of smoke on the horizon. Moonsorrow had already begun stretching folk and black metal into longer, more panoramic forms, and this album pushes decisively toward the style that would define their later work. The ambition is obvious from the opening mist of “Tyven.” The problem is that ambition and completion are not always the same thing.

The scenery is vast, yet too often the songs mistake distance travelled for a destination reached.

“Sankarihauta” makes the strongest early case for the record. Its central melodies have weight, the harsher passages move with real physical force, and the folk elements are integrated into the song rather than pinned onto it like decorative antlers. When the arrangement swells, it feels earned. The band understands how repetition can make a phrase feel older and larger with every return.

That method becomes less convincing on “Kylän päässä.” The track has atmosphere to spare, but its sections often circle the same emotional ground without deepening it. Moonsorrow are building a road through the forest, then marching us along it several times. The rough vocal character and massed guitars provide scale, yet the rhythm rarely creates enough tension to justify the length.

“Hiidenpelto” is more varied, moving between aggression, melody and quieter space with a better sense of narrative. Here the album briefly becomes the saga it wants to be: not merely long, but cumulative. “Aurinko ja Kuu” also benefits from clearer melodic contours, although some transitions still feel imposed rather than discovered.

By the time “Sankaritarina” closes the record, the central weakness is difficult to ignore. The album has compelling themes, committed performances and a persuasive atmosphere, but it too often relies on duration to manufacture significance. The production reinforces that tendency, pushing guitars and keyboards into a broad wall that can blur rhythmic detail.

This is an important Moonsorrow album because the band’s future is visible inside it. That does not make every experiment successful. Voimasta ja Kunniasta contains several powerful passages and one genuinely strong opening statement, but as a complete journey it remains uneven, overextended and less memorable than its scale suggests.