Phonebook Eater
4/10
"Metsa" is a messy, but still somewhat promising (at the time) EP by Moonsorrow.
Moonsorrow’s first effort as a group has been criticized a great deal by even the most die-hard fans of the band. Mostly, because of it’s ridiculously immature sound that is so distant from the glories to come of the Finnish band.
The production is in fact almost a joke: one of the most lo-fi productions I’ve heard, where the guitar melodies playing are barely recognizable, being extremely noisy and suffocated by the constant buzz. Then, there’s the most controversial element of this demo/EP: the vocals. They really do sound like a cat screaming, and can be really annoying. The crispy keyboards are in my opinion the redeeming characteristic that give the music a strange yet unique atmosphere, an atmosphere however still buried in a wall of noise.
With just three tracks in the course of less than twenty minutes, “Metsa” is still able to build in a somewhat climactic way: after the brief ambient intro, the extremely noisy “Fimbulvetr Frost” kicks in. It’s frankly a mess of a track because of all the details being corroded by the abrasive production; the only things really recognizable are the okay hooks and the vocals. “Hvergelmir” is a slight improvement, although the ten full minutes could have been cut a little: but the melodies and the song-writing are noticeably at a higher level, the vocals are slightly less annoying, and there is an interesting acoustic/folk passage that closes the piece, as well as the EP.
“Metsa” is really something only for the fans, even though it has some occasional bursts of talent, bursts that will be much more frequent in following albums.