Wolfheart – Winterborn

Winter Bred

Bands will very often create genres for themselves. It’s their way of owning the music they play, and a chance to give a more accurate description of both the band and the music they make.  It’s this sub-genre defining that can often times be a better description of a band than any bio. Nowhere is this more accurate than with Finland’s own, Wolfheart who describe themselves as “Winter Metal.”

Winter. Metal. Say it again. Winter. Metal. Perfect right?

To be fair the band, who began in 2013, does claim Finland as their home. So they know winter. As their latest release Winterborn shows, it’s not just winter they know. It’s metal as well.

The opening track, “The Hunt,” is as heavy as you can get. The intro has an incredibly beautiful classical guitar part that continues until the drums and guitar thunder into the track. The flair for the dramatic is not in short supply here and neither are the riffs. “The Hunt,” despite being rather fast, is filled with great, catchy riffs.

“Strength and Valour,” the album’s second track just gets right to it. No fooling around here. The drummer of the band, Joonas Kauppinen, slays on this song and this album. He does a great job of masterfully keeping a fever-like pace, in time no less, to guide this freight train of a band.

“Routa Pt. 2,” the albums third track has no vocals till almost four minute into the almost seven minute tune. Not to say you won’t miss it (their vocalist, Thomas Saukkonen, is doing some MONSTEROUS singing and lyric crafting on this album from front to back) it’s just that it makes sense to have it flesh out before the vocals arrive. It’s a powerful tune that, like “Strength and Valour” before it, really impress upon the listener how great this band really is.

For being only two years old, Wolfheart are saying with Winterborn that they are a force to be reckoned with in the future. The potential here is huge – but I guess fans will have to wait through another winter to hear it.