Finnish band MOONSORROW — one of the most striking phenomena in contemporary Viking Metal — is celebrating its 10th anniversary. It was founded in 1995 by cousins Ville and Henri Sorvali. The first demo appeared in 1997; in 1999 came the demo Tämä Ikuinen Talvi — in terms of sound still far from Viking metal, but with a pronounced influence of Norwegian symphonic black metal. In 2000 the first album Suden Uni was recorded, though it was not released until 2001; already on that album the band's style began to take shape, reaching its fullest development on the most celebrated second album Voimasta ja Kunniasta (2001). Two years later came Kivenkantaja. Across these albums the sound grew slower and more melodic, folk elements were added, while the black-metal-inherited guitar tremolo became conversely less pronounced. The new album Verisäkeet came out this year. The sound has changed: in several passages one can hear Viking metal in the form the style originally took — that is, the sound approaching black metal as closely as possible. At the same time, beautiful lyrical passages, battle sounds, and so on. In any case, confining MOONSORROW within genre labels is a thankless exercise. They have their own style — the combination of growling and screaming with beautiful clean vocals, lyrical instrumental passages with memorable melodies, long epic compositions about ancient warriors in the Finnish language, and an extraordinary overall atmosphere that cannot fail to appeal to any genuine heavy music connoisseur.
The band has been touring for four years; back in May news emerged that the time had come for russia to see the Finnish Vikings — and it truly came to pass. The band gave two concerts: on 19 August in st. petersburg supported by NOMANSLAND and WOLFSANGEL, and on 20 August in moscow, where the support acts were DEMONS OF GUILLOTINE, ARKONA, and INSIDE YOU. The second of these concerts, held at the Relax club, is what I shall describe below.
At around 7 o'clock in the evening the lights went down in the Relax concert hall, and Lazar, Knyaz, and Vlad appeared on stage — a lineup in which the well-known-in-the-moscow-underground band ROSSOMAHAAR could begin a concert without any problem. But then vocalist Masha Scream appeared on stage and we had before us ARKONA — black-death giving way to pagan. The ARKONA frontwoman is a rare phenomenon: the girl brilliantly combines clean, timbrally rich, deep vocals with excellent growl — not Angela Gossow, of course, but the level is very high. The band performed "Maslenitsa," "K domu Svaroga," "Bratya Slavyane," and several others; the finale — a tribute to Nadezhda Babkina with the song "Oy to ne vecher" — provoked a stormy reaction. The band was received with tremendous enthusiasm; people were even slamming in front of the stage. Overall, the opening to the concert was laid more than excellently.
The next performing band was INSIDE YOU — the Istra-based band that recently recorded their debut album Lost In The Faith. The band plays death-doom with two vocalists — male growl and male clean; in spirit they slightly recall early MOONSPELL. The band performed several of their own compositions, concluding with the hit of all times and nations — "Tears of Time" by CREMATORY.
Finally, the last of the supporting bands: DEMONS OF GUILLOTINE. This band is well known to regular club visitors. The programme was standard — they played material from the 2004 album Bestiary. The band had recently undergone changes — both the drummer and following him the guitarist had changed; from the original lineup only frontman Zodiac remained, and it is primarily thanks to him that the band has its renown. Because anyone who has seen the Demons live will not soon forget what this made-up man in a curious costume gets up to on stage. The band opened with one of the album's strongest songs — "Serye Tumany," followed by "Opalenny ray" and other album tracks. For the finale, joined by the bassist of moscow black metal band GROM, Zodiac performed the song sharing his stage name.
That concluded the support acts. After a short interval the evening's stars appeared: the Finnish Vikings MOONSORROW. They began to tune up; virtually everyone who had come to the club that evening consolidated at the stage. It should be said that all the equipment standing at the Relax that day bore the Marshall name. Yet even such equipment could not correct the familiar lamentable sound situation in this club. The sound was, of course, considerably better than at ordinary concerts there, but still far from ideal.
The band began their set without any intro, opening with a track from the Kivenkantaja album — "Jumalten Kaupunki." Let us mention straight away that the band's full-time guitarist Henri Sorvali (also Trollhorn, keyboardist of FINNTROLL) had not made it to moscow, replaced by session player Janne Perttilä; accordingly, all other regular members were present: guitarist Mitja, vocalist and bassist Ville, drummer Marko Tarvonen (who had cut his hair and was not recognised by many), and keyboardist Markus. It should also be mentioned that contrary to what the poster had suggested, the band took the stage with a complete absence of corpse paint. The instruments, judging by the sound of the first composition, had been properly tuned; Ville's microphone, however, only began working midway through the song. One cannot help noting that the musicians play very well and work with considerable cohesion when technical problems arise. The next song was "Kylan Pää." After these songs there were no further instrument problems, and everything proceeded smoothly. The live sound overall differs quite significantly from what we can hear on the studio recordings, but this is naturally connected to the ordinary particularities of live performance.
The only track from the latest album performed that day was the 14-minute "Pimeä." Here, honestly, I even preferred the live performance to the album version. We then heard "Sankarihauta," "Jumalten Kaupunki," and "Sankaritarina" — compositions played at the majority of the band's concerts. Particularly animated was the crowd's reception of the powerful and aggressive "Unohduksen Lapsi."
By this point there were no more shortcomings. The sound had been relatively balanced. One of the band's distinctive features is the combination of clean vocals with growling: to the surprise of most present, clean vocals were contributed not only by Mitja but also by drummer Marko — and not in just one song, but in all of them. In "Kylan Pää," incidentally, the session guitarist handled the growling for a passage. It was completely impossible to feel that this musician was not a permanent member of the collective, as the musicians formed an absolute harmony on stage.
The concert concluded with a track from the band's debut album Suden Uni — "Pakanajuhla." Free of pomposity, one of the most cheerful and fastest-sounding compositions in the band's repertoire.
With that the concert ended, leaving the most positive impressions. Of course the live sound differs significantly from the studio recordings — especially with the epic compositions. Yet this did not spoil the picture at all; on the contrary, it gave an opportunity to experience the band's work from a different perspective.
Special thanks for the accreditation provided.
Report by Alan
Setlist:
- Jumalten Kaupunki
- Sankarihauta
- Kylan Pää
- Pimeä
- Unohduksen Lapsi
- Sankaritarina
- Pakanajuhla