• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5

It's been 20 years since this band's breakout album, Iron, and that's hard for me to really believe. It's also hard to believe that it's been 15 years since their one definitive masterpiece with From Afar, and that nothing since then has been as good. Ensiferum have become one of the flagships of what gets called "Viking Metal" these days, even if I think they are mostly an overrated band.

Winter Storm is neither better nor worse than the last few albums by this band. The production and playing are top-notch, the songwriting is uneven, being mostly pretty bland with the odd burst of brilliance here and there. Petri Lindroos is still a pretty bad vocalist, but the clean singing mixed in keeps things tolerable. Ensiferum have been a mediocre band for most of their career, and this is another mediocre album.