Whispered - "Metsutan - Songs of the Void" album review

Year of Melodic Death Metal continues, this time with Whispered, band that I came across 2 years ago and quickly grew to be one of my favourites, played everytime I workout. Since I covered their last 2 albums on this shitty blog it was obvious I'll review the new one. Teased last year with Sakura Omen, and reteased with Strike! now out and ready to go. Am I excited?

yes.

Let's move.
Chi No Odori opens with japanese folk intruments and a guy turning Super Saiyan for the first time, probably getting ready to fight Gojira. After last intro which went straight for anal rape this is a nice alternation, getting prepared for a ride.

Track quickly goes to Strike! . More japanese influence is seen, as japanese bands love to use exclamation marks in track titles, as if they were really excited. I already covered this track, we have everything a samurai needs to battle his foes- fast tempo, different riffs every few seconds, bass solo, shamisen, guitar screams, choir chorus and quick growling telling how to strike fast, without the second thought.

Exile of the Ukiyo is something new, and starts with washing machine going overdrive, soon jumping into vocal driven insanity. Jouni gives his all on this track and I can't stop feeling envious and worried while listening to his screams, I hope he cares for his throat so we can have more beautiful music in next years.
The track might be a bit hard to swallow on the first try, as it beats Kappa when it comes to insanity and composition. Even the lyrics are hard to describe, maybe Jouni himself will try to explain?

"A twisted oriental hell-ride where we dive into the mind of a maddening artist. Inspired by the woodblock print artist Yoshitoshi, the song dwells in the midst of absolute lunacy, inspiration and the artist's despise of the modern art-world. It's tricky but a really fun song to play!"

oh, so a crazy artist, my mind ventured further than that, and I was thinking about crazy Shugenja, practitioner of blood magic of mahō tsukai, mentally corrupted of the taint black magic, made by Darkness and the twisted mind of Onnotagu. But an artist is fine too :P

saw it more like this

Lots of black metal here, insane laughs and solos, maybe not my favourite style, but vocals here shine like Amaterasu's smile

Sakura Omen, the biggest tease track of 2015. It either got refreshed for this album, or it's the first time I listen to this track on decent headphones. Story of a coward running from the fight, shitting on Bushido and pissing off the Archgoddess of Life and Death. The absolute best chorus of Whispered, unless the rest of this album proves me otherwise (edit: it didn't) .

Kensei is a track dedicated to the memory of the undefeated swordmaster Miyamoto Musashi, and the lyrics match the craftmanship behind Musashi's skill in battle. They are able to tell the story of his first duel, hint quite a few of his teachings and also stroke his sword, if You know what I mean.

The song combines many of Whispered favorite elements- black metal, power metal riffs and solos, folky instruments, choirs and washing machines in the background. Solos strike with the power of dual wielding Niten technique

 “Amaterasu gave me two hands to serve my lord. 

Am I so proud that I will only use one?”

Our Voice Shall Be Heard comes back to more horror atmosphere, by telling the story of a desecrated shrine by a greedy man, and foul, bloodthirsty spirits being born as a conclusion. Shift in Whispered style is seen again, with almost symphonic black metal approach. As a reviewer I'm confused as hell, to the point where I casually bang my head and think "I don't know what it is, but it's amazing".
Thankfully the band provided a picture that tells in great detail what genre they play

they forgot "Gojira worship" metal

Tsukiakari starts peacefully and slow, easing my mind after the last track and giving me hope for a ballad. Hope soon crushed by a fast tempo story about a right hand of a cruel tyrant commiting suicide, hoping that his death will help his master see the path he took is wrong. The song finally shifts the style slightly to classic melodic death metal, and it helps to show both sides of the man's emotion- repentance and hope on one side, despair and hatred on the other. Outro just begs for another listen.

"Life given to mend a broken heart for a man who has lost his own so long ago"

Warriors of Yama finally brings some well deserved rest from all those tales and thought-provoking lyrics. Instrumental track, and we all know I suck at reviewing these. Not much to review here, it's a typical relaxation track, with soft orchestrations, bamboo flute (my autocorrect wanted to write bimbo flute, I love how my pc knows me).

Victory Grounds Nothing, and back to washing machine recorded in almost pagan metal fashion. But the rest of the instruments doesn't follow, instead it turns into rather straightforward track, without much tempo and riff changes, but includes an epic choir driven chorus. The lyrics also don't try to hide much meaning, as the title probably says all there is.
But it's in no case a bad track, I actually needed something more simple at this point, after all those stories, lyric decoding and googling what the hell Otoroshi is.
And considering the next track is the last one on the album and over 11 fucking minutes long - I really needed a break like that.


Ok, here we go, Bloodred Shores of Enoshima. Finally water can be heard, the sound of rain would be so fitting in some previous tracks, but this will do too. Starts peacefully but I bet in 2 minutes we will hear Jouni going Super Saiyan. Distant choirs open the song with guitars following soon. These guys would make amazing movie music, but instead they're waking Gojira (again) with metal power, and I ain't even mad.
The track outsymphones Pathfinder, outepics Wintersun and outfucks my vocabulary.
The composition here is amazing, song is divided to 5 acts, showing different aspects of samurai metal, includes many breaks from the extreme sounds and includes most developed synths I heard in a long time.
Maybe overuses the voice telling the story, but since 1000 swords I disliked that element of Whispered music, and this time it's not as annoying as on the first album.

Remorse...

^ this shit caught me off-guard for a second, even in the last minutes this album doesn't stop to surprise me.
And I haven't even said about the lyrics yet, about a goddess descending to a mortal world to help the people fight a dragon, that finally falls in love with the goddess, is rejected, realizes how much pain it brought and turns into a mountain in shame.

I'm speachless.

Sorry for childish jokes but I'm turning 25 in 3 days and it's depressing

Jouni said it's the most ambitious song they ever made, and he's right. For the first time in my life I heard something that outmatches Sons of Winter and Stars, or Stratovarius's Elysium. They really fucked themselves on the next album, will they try to beat that song? Fuck me.


Phew, hell of a ride. Whispered evolved even further in their sound, I should expect something like that after Sakura Omen premiered last year but it blew my mind nonetheless.
I should probably write here a long sentence summarying the album without shitty jokes and other distractions so maybe Whispered will post it on their facebook wall, but fuck that, my reviews suck and we all know it.

I can only show passion through my walls of text, passion fueled by bands like Whispered. The absolute masters of mixing genres and subgenres while still keeping the harmony, melody and catchyness no matter how extreme the song goes.
I start to think that the story behind the word "finesse" was someone witnessing the finnish skill in crafting and balancing the sound, and Whispered stand out among other finnish bands just like Miyamoto Mushashi stood before other swordmasters.
(psst, Jouni, that's the quote to put on facebook, right here :P )

Score doesn't matter here, but:

Vocals: 11/10
Guitars: 11/10
Bass: 11/10
Drums: 11-/10

Additional:
+++best lyrics I read ever, perfect balance in telling the story and catchyness
++ intensity of sound
++ blend of subgenres comparable to best blended whisky
+ can't go wrong with sucking the dick of Miyamoto Musashi
+ greatly improved intros to tracks, no more dry anal rape
+ choirs, background stuff
+++ I probably forgot about something important so have 3 points more, why the fuck not, my review, I will do what I want
+ #hailGojira

Total score that's totally legit and totally matters: 144%

Totally album of the year material right here, but let's give other bands a chance too. I can only tell that Omnium Gatherum didn't win with this one :P