4 November 2024
It has been 29 years since Ensiferum was founded. This is not a short time. Most bands experience line-up changes in such a long period. Ensiferum is no exception.
If the band’s history is examined, it may be noticed that they have experienced two important breaking points. The most important of these is the departure of founding vocal/guitar personnel Jari Mäenpää after the second album. However, the band managed to fill this gap very positively. Petri has been in the band for twenty years now and is doing his job very well. The second breaking point was addition of Pekka, who joined the band in the previous album Thalassic and took on the keyboard/clean vocal duties. And, YES, the band hit the nail on the head one more time. Pekka does the keyboard duties well and in addition to the previous two keyboardists he makes a valuable contribution to the band with his top-notch clean vocals. As has been the case for a long time, Sami continues to contribute to the clean vocals as well.
Ensiferum’s formula has been similar since the first album. Although not always, they like to include emotional songs with guest female vocals in their albums. In Winter Storm album, “Scars in my Heart” is such a song. The band handed the microphone to Eleine’s vocalist, Swedish model Madeleine Liljestam. They made a good decision because Madeleine sang the song beautifully.
Winter Storm is Ensiferum’s fifth album beginning from Unsung Heroes. Although I find all five albums similar to each other, I think, the previous, Thalassic is still the best of them, maybe due to the fact that new arrival of fresh blood Pekka had motivated the band members.
As long as Ensiferum continue in this way, they will not upset listeners who are familiar with their style. The band’s main composer Markus is such a talented man who shows his musical ability in a way that there are a few songs in almost every Ensiferum album that will steal the listeners’ hearts.
Songs like Winter Storm Vigilantes, Fatherland and Victorious will be precious additions to the band’s live set list and can be sung in unison with the audience. For listeners who have been following the band since their early days, it is an album that does not promise incredible things but guarantees the band’s future career. There is not much more to say, Ensiferum is as we know them, but since they now have a very good singer like Pekka, they can achieve much greater things with better compositions. I wish them a bright future. May the force be with them.
7,5/10
