WOLFHEART Winterborn DOUBLE LP Vinyl NEW 2017

A composer, multi-instrumentalist and a veritable metal scene unto himself, Tuomas Saukkonen is the mastermind of bands like Before the Dawn, Dawn of Solace, Black Sun Aeon, Routasielu and a slew of others. Saukkonen is the type of guy to whom you can give a rock, or a piece of drainage pipe, just to see that 15 minutes later he's somehow managed to tune and play a song with it. Yet with all of those records and bands under his belt, Tuomas has never played quite like this.

The fittingly named Wolfheart's devastatingly excellent debut album could be labelled winter metal - every ice-cold note of it inspired, well-thought out and breathing in perfect equilibrium with the surrounding harsh nature; brutal as the frozen landscapes it paints on the canvas of your mind, yet beating with the warmth of a wild beast's heart. And deep within the brutality of it all there are details like in snowflakes; intricate, delicate, beautiful.