Chapter 2.3

Chapter 2.2 - Index - Chapter 3.1

The five guys never stopped. At this time (keep in mind that fourteen months passed between the recording and the release of Suden uni, that’s a lot) they already had several songs written. In Marko’s words, “Me and Henri just sat at home composing new material every day, bringing new aspects to Moonsorrow´s music. We had some 100 minutes of new material. So it was easy to pick the best songs from that pre-production. Actually, we had some of [the second album’s] material ready when Suden Uni came out because its release was delayed.”

Drunken Viking Choir™

So in August (we’re in 2001, remember) they went to Tico-Tico Studios again to record the follow-up to Suden uni, which would be called Voimasta ja kunniasta (this means Of strength and honour). Initially, the release date was set to November 26th, but there was a little delay and finally it came out on December 3rd; which, compared to the debut’s delay, was quite an improvement. Then the year 2001 ended. They only did three concerts, all of them in Helsinki.

Let’s talk a bit of Voimasta ja kunniasta. This time it was recorded by four people: Ville, bass and voice;

2001 promo pic

Henri, guitars, keyboards and folk stuff; Mitja, more guitars; and Baron, percussion and 12-string acoustic guitar, which apparently he does quite well. Also, and for the first time, Baron wrote music together with Henri, actually the songs “Hiidenpelto” and “Sankaritarina” were mostly written by him. And Eurén? Eurén clapped his hands together with those two guys from Thyrane and Janne Perttilä (Handclap Squad), and also contributed to the Drunken Viking Choir. The cover art was made by Skrymer, guitarist of Finntroll. About the album’s content, I think it’s the most epic they have overall. It still has strong folk influences, but it’s less ‘dark’ than the previous; and some songs have quite quiet parts. The last three – out of five, which is quite a percentage (I’m not counting the intro).

Voimasta ja kunniasta artwork

Anyway, there’s much less difference between V&K and SU than between SU and TIT, for sure. The two first songs, “Sankarihauta” and “Kylän päässä”, are probably the most famous they have, and define perfectly the Moonsorrow sound. They described it as “Carrying the vein started with Suden uni far beyond epic and bombastic. Folkish as always and now also somewhat progressive.” The lyrics were written, as usual, by Ville, and it’s a concept album, although I personally had huge difficulties to find the concept – which obviously doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily difficult to understand, but I get lost with that English so poetic and baroque they use in the translations. It deals with a man who betrays his brother, by revealing information about the latter’s village to an enemy tribe, in exchange of riches.

Aurinko ja kuu

Chapter 2.2 - Index - Chapter 3.1