Swinelords

The third full release from the glimmering Twilightning came to my ears without predisposition. I knew nothing of them, earlier releases, or what to expect from them beyond that of an ambiguous description aligning them with melodic and unique 80’s power metal. That said, the album opened for me like a floodgate into Waterworld and I went along very gladly swept up in the melodies and musicianship I found, taking it all at face value and appreciating the deeper facets when they were there to be heard.

Note must be made first and foremost that this is not a high-speed, galloping, or more aggressive power metal incarnation such as we’ve come to love in the past decades since all the Hammerfalls and Stratovariae exploded into existence. This also isn’t the kind hyper-metallic traditional approach I’ve come to build a shrine to Jag Panzer for. Twilightning may have itself been of the genus Stratovariae on their debut release, but come “Swinelords” we have a very different sonic cocktail mixed for us from these Finnish fellows. Sometimes interesting and other-times outright-ripping, this album never strays far enough from heavy metal to run out of energy or punch, and yet constantly defies being limited by ideologies inherent to its father genre.

Essentially this album does a great deal of flirting heavy metal root sounds with the romanticism of hard rock songwriting. High energy, driving upbeat arrangement, riffs crunchier than being slapped by a six-foot-tall Dorito, accessible hyper-catchy material, epic and dramatic groove, yes, if the leaning away from double-kicks and Judas Priest renders music to sound like worthless noise to you, then yes, stop here as you won’t be able to appreciate all of the aforementioned pleasantries this album offers.

Produced more than well enough for what there is to be heard within its sonic wilderness, my personal feeling is that what tiny blips show up here and there in the album are more aspects of the maturity and experience of the band than they are production issues. That said, I’m not complaining.

Like my undying weakness for cookies, I’m a head-over-heels fool for upbeat and melodic music. Maybe that’s why I love this album, and maybe that’s not even that bad a thing. There’s no real lag in the album where you can easily point and say, “That one, coulda’ done without that one.” It’s a “grab your hat and come along” movement from the coy opening notes of “Isolation Shell” all the way ‘til the train shrieks to a final halt with the close of “Wounded & Withdrawn”. The latter, being the closest of any of the compositions to a ballad, still rolls itself on with a respectable bit of gusto, rounding out what could have been a dull, melancholic song, giving it instead an energy and life worthy of the rest of the cuts it stands aside.

Of the guitars and guitar work: utterly exquisite and one of the saving graces of this album at all times. Quality riffing and respectable leads, always serving as one of the most refreshing constants on the album, and always popping up in the right places (everywhere!). For the most part the recording puts them out in front in the mix just where every metalhead knows they belong. At times there are a few guitar lines that could be a bit more ‘to the forefront’, but then again they could also have gone and shot off blast-beats through all off their songs just to be Kvlt, so again I’m not complaining just because I didn’t get enough blue sprinkles on the top of my 5-scoop fucking iced cream cone. As far as the guys behind the axes, let’s just say it’s apparent that there’s more talent cradled in this outfit than just the band’s stand-out vocalist. Take note of the ballsy move made by the guitars and band on “Not A Word”, in which we hear how well exclusive acoustic guitars can sound in a song and do note, as well, how utterly well the song turned out for it’s lack of blazing electric distortion. It could have gone the other way and bogged the album sounding like a ballad straight off of “Chameleon”, one of which the following tracks may not have been able to escape unharmed, but instead it continues the flow of the album and adds to it selflessly.

Throughout the album are such instances of greater and lesser triumphs. “The Gun”, for instance, is a fine fireball of piss and vinegar, and one of the heavier aspects of this release. Great for the guitars, the vocals, the epic arrangement, and of course the melody. “Pimps, Witches, Thieves & Bitches” on the other hand, isn’t really good for any one stand-out reason, but simply moves with the flow of the album and never drops the ball, the groove, or the melody.

As if I haven’t got it across yet that this is a pure fix for anyone sucked in by a good melodic chorus or soaring vocalist, here you go: it is. Even in the places where there’s nothing but guitars and weak lyrics to carry the procession forward, the melodies never let down. Sometimes they save parts of tracks, other times they turn tracks like “Vice Jesus” into the more-than-average track that it is. Mixed with the brightest moments of Heikki Pöyhiä’s vocals and the intriguing things he’s got to say, this is the essence and soul of the offered cuts making up “Swinelords”.

Though not always at the top of the talent spectrum, the lyrics do offer talented artistic renderings of thought and emotion that deepen the feel of the album considerably, and give the vocals fuel for the fire that they light. Taking shots at Religion, lifestyles, dysfunctionality, pop culture, and the human mind among others, Twilightning pull punches effective and atypical to that of their feel, which at times hints of Helloween, and at others howls of Freak Kitchen. Unlike the empty-headed angry rants and metal-is-supreme overtones of their parent genre, Twilightning have made “Swinelords” sound more like a record of ten individual and unrelated epic stories, similar to the manner in which Hansi Kursch can take a non-concept album like “A Night at the Opera” and make it sound just as epic as if it were with his lyrics.

Great musicians, great songs, in short this in one of my feel-good albums, as it has been from the moment I first heard it. Yes, it strays from traditional paths and brings a fair bit of material to the table that says ‘hard rock’ as much as ‘metal’. For some that is a problem, for me it’s called ‘music’ and doesn’t have to stick rigidly to the “Keeper of the Seven Keys Part II” checklist to be enjoyed. Maybe this is because I love Heep, Purple, Rush and Rainbow and consider them welcome in the metal section, or maybe it’s that I love ‘music’ instead of just ‘metal’ and I don’t really deserve to have this published on a heavy-metal-only website.

Now here is a metal band (and I now use the word metal loosely) that has been the topic of many metal forums as of late. The main questions being asked would be their change of music style and has this change worked for them. There has also been some curiosity on how their new CD entitled ‘Swinelords’ would sound.

Twilightning started off with a bang back in 2003 with their debut CD, ‘Delirium Veil’. This CD was one of the better debuts I’ve heard in a long time and the future seemed very bright for this young power metal band. Then we started to notice a change in their sound with their 2nd release, ‘Plague-House Puppet Show’. The band’s sound was leaning towards an 80s rock/metal sound more so than the power metal sound which they began with. Although the CD had a few great tracks, it was just not as good as ‘Delirium Veil’.

So 3 years have passed since ‘Plague-House Puppet Show’. The question on people’s lips would be what will the new CD sound like? Another mix of power metal and 80s rock like their 2nd CD, or back to their debut release sound? Well, the answer is neither, as the term power metal has completely disappeared from Twilightning’s sound.

‘Swinelords’ is completely 80s hard rock/heavy metal. Now, I am a fan of 80s heavy metal. The songs of that genre are quite catchy and enjoyable, but after spinning ‘Swinelords’ a few times I just felt disappointed. Mainly because I preferred Twilightning’s ‘Delirium Veil’ sound. I liked the melodic power metal mixed with a touch of 80s metal and I didn’t mind the 80s feel being used more in their 2nd CD. But this is just not what I was hoping for.

Vocalist Heikki Poyhia has a great voice and was one of the things that drew me to this band in the first place. But on ‘Swinelords’, I got very frustrated with his delivery. In most parts he is quite melodic and emotional, but in others it was almost just the opposite, and I couldn’t get into some of the songs as much as I wanted to. Musically, there are quite a few different elements thrown into each track. Some straight up hard rock/metal, while others have a southern rock and even a blues feel to them. Each track does have some catchy and melodic parts, particularly during the chorus, and a few memorable riffs throughout, but overall I feel that the CD is still disappointing and lacking that originality we heard from ‘Delirium Veil’.

Unfortunately, some of the songs can be rather misleading, where you hear a rockin’ and catchy opening riff and you hope that the tracks seems promising. But then the main part of the track kicks in and it’s completely different from the opening, a let down so to speak. ‘Swinelords’ does have some good moments and decent songs, but they are so far and few between. If I had to pick some of the better tracks from the CD, they would include “Swinelord”, “With The Flow”, “Vice Jesus”, “The Gun” and “Consume Gap”. I wouldn’t call any of those mentioned tracks “killers”, but they just had more catchy parts, better riffs and sung well by Heikki Poyhia.

So, for me, I am disappointed. Yes there are parts that I enjoyed, but just not very many. That’s not to say ‘Swinelords’ is a terrible CD. It would totally appeal to fans of 80s heavy metal and only 80s heavy metal. Fans of power metal and those like me who enjoyed ‘Delirium Veil’ may take a few parts here and there from the CD, but that’s all. I’ll leave you all to make up your own minds about this release, but in my humble opinion, I feel Twilightning are moving in the wrong direction and fans could easily lose interest after hearing this CD. And the ones who were sitting on the fence after ‘Plague-House Puppet Show’ may as well just jump off after ‘Swinelords’.

Another band gets too big for their britches. Something happened to Twilightning after their debut, and while I'm not exactly sure what, I can definitely say it was not a good thing. Perhaps it was the taste of fame they got from boasting such a commercial, easy to enjoy style, which inevitably lead to the fact that they now just don't care about making good music anymore. I gave Twilightning a lot of leeway before, as despite their obvious commerciality and Sonata Arctica-isms, they had a lot of talent and made some good music for a while. The cat is out of the fucking bag now, though, as without their mesmerizingly cool power metal semblances to save them, Twilightning are naked and exposed; exposed for the greedy attention whores they are. They might talk big and act like they're "original" or "ballsy" or whatever else they throw around in interviews, but in reality, this is a band that has gotten progressively worse and worse over time, a band that pussified their sound to the utmost extreme possible. They might claim that they "don't care about trends," and "do what they want," but that's nonsense. The only thing they don't care about these days is their fanbase, whom they have promptly taken a gigantic shit upon with this one. This is a worthless, fecal radio-rock album and nothing more, and that money on the album cover pretty much sums up the attitude of the band nowadays, whether they intended such a thing or not. We can't ignore it any longer, folks - if any of you ever liked Twilightning before, there's no point in bothering with them anymore. This was bound to happen sooner or later. We've reached critical mass, and my Bullshit-o'meter is giving me a flaming red warning signal - this is just about the worst "power metal" album I've ever heard in my life.

Folks, this isn't even a metal album - no, instead, it's very much a commercial 80s glam rock record, sounding as if it was parachuted right through time and landed in the new millennium, by some horrible freak accident. The only difference is that this lacks the catchiness and general "fun" sort of feel you'd get from RATT and Quiet Riot. Seriously, these songs will go in one ear and out the other, never even staying to try and stick with you at all. It's like making a car but not including an engine; it just doesn't work like that. I can't really call this specific album a sell out, though, as Twilightning have always been really poppy and melodic. But the difference was that they once made music worth listening to, whereas now they don't have any sort of musical talent to hide behind. Hell, they don't even have a keyboardist anymore to add that certain "magical" air the debut had. This is just a mess of boring hard rock riffs and pointless solos and melodies from a pair of guitarists who used to create exuberant and vibrant melodies, and tepid, annoying vocal lines belted out by the shallow, lifeless husk of a voice of Heikki Pohyia, who was once a metal singer, and is now merely a cockgobbling radio crooner with little to no worth at all.

Where there was once a shimmering and beautiful ballad titled "Under Somber Skies," there is now only a shallow, worthless radio rock abomination called "Not a Word," which is easily the worst thing Finland's metal scene has and will ever produce, complete with stupid acoustic guitar twanging and some ghastly, awful nasal crooning. Seriously, it doesn't get worse than this. It really doesn't. Where there were speedy, energetic power metal crackers like "Gone to the Wall" or "Delirium Veil," there are now bouncy, poppy, idiotic, midpaced tunes with choruses that never fail to annoy and riffs that will never make your head bang. Opener "Isolation Shell" does have a catchy chorus, but it's catchy in a really obnoxious way, and you can just smell the hair gel and makeup radiating from your speakers as Pohyia commits his aural sodomy over those inane, rehashed-from-the-80s riffs. The songwriting is inane and pedestrian, positively faceless in every single aspect, and really, really simple and radio friendly on every front. The other songs follow suit, and the difference between this and Delirium Veil are just night and day.

The music here is, in all reality, worth maybe a 15% or 20%, but I can't bring myself to give this any points at all. In addition to the fact that they are slimy, greasy, money grubbing whores (which is enough to make me lose respect for the band's previous albums as well), this album is an exercise in simultaneously pissing on the graves of 80s glam rock and modern power metal, being such a bloated, over-saturated joke on the rock genre as a whole. This album is not only the worst of European power metal, but it's also a really bad glam rock record, even for glam standards. There's none of the melodic sensibility of a Stratovarius or a Gamma Ray, and none of the catchy vigor that made bands like Motley Crue or Whitesnake so much fun to listen to. Bands have been blending power metal with 80s rock for a while now, but never has a band done so this poorly, and never this blatantly and offensively either.

At this point, you're probably starting to wonder if aliens abducted the band known as Twilightning and replaced them with this absurdly bad group of drugged up, out-of-work 80s butt rocking has-beens, but come on, people - open your eyes! This is very much Twilightning, the Twilightning that always existed under the gloss and polish, the man behind the curtain, the face behind the makeup. When you take that away, this is what you're left with. So what exactly does this leave us with, folks? Nothing. Nothing at all but a bad album from a band that has stopped caring about making good music and about most of their fanbase. Twilightning can keep making their shitty throwback glam rock, but they can just go ahead and count me out. I'm done. There's no reason for me, or anyone for that matter, to pay any attention to this worthless band at all now. What a fucking colossal waste.

Few years ago, this band catched my attention in some local magazine. They did it because they were Finns, and tried to distance themselfs from the sound of Stratovarius and Sonata Arctica. Few month later, I acctualy got my hands on their debut album "Delirium Veil" and was stunned by the sound, and the quality of the album. I still consider that one of the best albums that emerged from the Finnish metal scene. Now what the hell has gone wrong in the meantime ?

Well, for a start, they were the perfect mix of '80s Hard Rock infulence, mixed up with Powerish like sound of the Suomi metal school, similar to those Strato/Sonata efforts. A perfect mix of catchy melodies, fast keyboards, and Heikki's fantastic vocals. Well a man would ask himself why they have lost it. This album sounds much more like the bad effort of taking back the '80s rock sound. But in the bad way. Unlike previous one's, on this one Heikki lost his fantastic vocal abilites for a start. The whole album sounds like they deliberatly tried to distance themselfs from the powerish sound, and that resultet in a not so good rock-heavy record.

What is so wrong with this album. Well first and foremost, they lost their catchy sound, the melodies that would enter your ears and would go out no matter what you do. They lost the keyboardist also, so I guess that has a lot to do with it. Heikki lowered his voice, changed his style a little bit, and that brought the end to it. From the begining to the end, I have a strong feeling of something very big missing on the album. Not just in terms of originality, you dont have to be the most original artist, to put up a quality, to make an album worth listening. This one is definetly not the one. Dont get me wrong, I dont think that '80s rock is a bad thing. But this one is. You dont have the catchy sound of Bon Jovi, nor the quality of Whitesnake, you just have... well an album where something went horribly wrong, and noone know the reason why. Definetly they had far better sound with more keyboards, and with faster melodies, because like this their sound is put in one word - EMPTY. They have never been the most original band, but the way they made some songs was very good, a good mix of this and that, that catches your ear, and draws your attention. You wont find that on this one though. The best moment of the album is probably that song thats somthing like critic of MTV (Pimps, Witches, Thieves & Bitches) but dont get your hopes high, its still only an avarage at it's best.

All in all, I really can't understand what happend to them, they were showing a lot of promise at the begining, but somewhere along the road, things went horribly wrong for those guys. Try to avoid this one, stick to "Delirium Veil" or even "Plague House Puppet Show", and cross your fingers that they will realise what have gone wrong, and use their potential to the best, especially the great voice of Heikki's who can be one of the best finnish vocalist if he gets back to his old style. I believe that potential for this band is still there, but they have a lot things to do right for the next one, if they want to emerge as something more then "just another finnish heavy metal band".