(Melodic Heavy Metal) Winterborn - Farewell To Saints - 2009, APE (image+.cue), lossless

#777Winterborn was founded at the end of 2004. The same line-up started earlier as a heavy rock coverband called Mean Machine and it transformed into Winterborn when the guys thought it was time to move on and do some own material. With the original line-up they did one album, Cold Reality, which was released all over the world on November 2006. And right after the release, December 4 th , the band st…arted their first European tour which lasted the rest of the year, reaching 6 countries with 22 shows. The album was released by German label Massacre Records after the band signed a deal with them on August 2006. The album was praised by the critics all over and the band achieved deservable attention amongst heavy fans in Europe and in Japan . Unfortunately, in their home country, the album and band wasn`t promoted at all, and didn`t get the attention deserved. After the tour and few gigs in Finland , band started recording their second album on August 2007 and due to various reasons, it took 7 months to get the album recorded, and nearly a year before the whole package was ready for release. During the year 2008, band had changes in their line-up. First, they changed their bass player. Janne Suvanto who had been in the band since the beginning, had to go. But they didn`t have to look for the replacement that far away. Pasi Kauppinen who had worked with the band since making of the first album, joined in. And few months after that, the next one to go was drummer Rami Heikkilä who still plays on the album on every song except on Last Man Standing. After Rami was gone, it took a while to find another man to fullfill the position. After being sure that the playing style and personality matched, Lauri Bexar joined the band on March 2008. And at the same time the band decided to ask guitarist Antti Hokkala, who had played with the other two new guys before, to join the group. The new Winterborn was born. After they inked a deal with Japanese label Marquee/Avalon, the second album titled “Farewell To Saints” was released in Japan on November 19 th 2008. The release in Europe and rest of the world took a lot longer. Farewell To Saints came out during May and June. After that, the band played few shows in Finland . The Farewell to Saints European tour 2009 supporting their fellow Finnish powermetal group Sonata Arctica, started on 12 th November and ended on 15 th December. On January 2010, Winterborn announced more European Tour dates with Sonata Arctica. 6 shows in Europe and 4 show in Finland.

Farewell To Saints is the second full-length release by these winterborn Finns. The music contained on the record never gets quite as icy as its creators' name would have you believe, but nevertheless, they seem to have accomplished what they set out to do.

If power metal with a bit of oomph is your thing, Farewell To Saints is highly recommendable; the guys in Winterborn deliver solid melodies and plenty of heaviness. On top of that, there's good singing, nice choruses, and a slew of impressive details spread throughout most of the album's near-one hour duration. But while everything is solid, the band's solo sections deserve special mention. The keyboard--which is otherwise underused or utilized in a far too cursory manner during a lot of the songs, although I suppose that was a necessary sacrifice for the heaviness to shine through--works together superbly with the twin guitars during these parts, which also tend to be quite compact. There's a time and a place for long, stretched out jams, but Winterborn keeps theirs quick and to the point so as to make them instantly memorable and eliminate tedium. As a result, the majority of the songs have strong finishes--and all's well that ends well.

The album itself ends on a high (and lengthy) note: "Another World" clocks in at nearly eleven minutes, and while it's not the most adventurous or fantastical ten-minute journey ever put out, it's a fine closer. It, like the rest of Farewell To Saints, is certainly worth a listen.