Rating: 10/10
Release: 21 February 2011
Label: Spinefarm Records

Moonsorrow, one of my personal favorites. The Finns present a professional sound in its own style for many years now. The album is as always in Finnish and so are the songs. My Finnish is not very good so I have only just looked up what they mean, “Tähdetön” means star of charge.
The song lasts for 12:43 as we are already used to with Moonsorrow. No long keyboard intro but just guitars, surprising for the beginning of an album and certainly with Moonsorrow. In the rest of this track the keyboard keeps himself in the background for a great deal. But it is certainly a very strong number. “Hävitetty”, Destroyed, translated quite freely, 1:35 long sounds of the wind, a passing man. An instrumental piece runs through this sound-scape, but in the end it’s not a real song of course, but it’s a nice fun-part. Muinaiset “The old ones”. In one word, this song is fantastic. This is how you like to hear Moonsorrow, almost 12 minute long guitar and screaming interspersed with beautiful keyboard parts. A real issue for the Moonsorrow lovers. “Nälkä, Väsymys Epätoivo Yes” or hunger, exhaustion and despair. This piece also takes just over a minute and again you hear the passing man through the snow. In the distance you can hear people in fear. And then the next song begins, “Huuto” which means cry. It opens strongly, very quiet with an acoustic guitar. Tranquillity gives way to well-known electric guitars and grunts, but the sad rhythm comes back into the keyboard, causing this rhythm to have a strong presence. Again a very strong track. The text is a mystery to me but the title says it all, respect it is already an achievement in itself to make a song simultaneously sad and heroic but it seems to have succeeded the Finns. Moonsorrow late in this album that they can just stay with their own sound, but still another even more commitment. For the dead, “Kuolleille”. The man is still on its way through the snow and this time he almost did. The spacers are a nice touch in the album, for anyone who doesn’t speak Finnish, they clarify the story a bit. The last song, “Kuolleiden Maa”, the land of the dead. A fantastic last track on a CD which already downright brilliant to me. It takes 16 minute 23 and still, and to me, it could have been longer. Perhaps the album had no catchy keyboard tunes such as “Pakanajuhla” or “sankarihauta” but it is certainly very good. Conclusion, to me “Varjoina Kuljemme Kuolleiden maassa” is the strongest album Moonsorrow has made so far. It offers the familiar Moonsorrow sound but still slightly different, and to me that new sound is slightly better.

Tracklist

1. Tähdetön
2. Hävitetty
3. Muinaiset
4. Nälkä, Väsymys Ja Epätoivo
5. Huuto
6. Kuolleille
7. Kuolleiden Maa