Tuomas Saukkonen‘s albums all sound the same. This is both good and not so good depending on the result. At worst it can feel like uninspired material because the man is stretching himself thin. This is what I’ve always seen the Wolfheart project as, the leftovers from Saukkonen‘s more successful work. But there’s a flip side to being this prolific and that is that you can also grow very fast and get into a flow situation where everything you produce is inspired. This seems to be the case for this guy lately. 2020’s Dawn Of Solace album was a decent effort that reminded me a lot of what I consider to be Saukkonen‘s high watermark – Black Sun Aeon‘s Darkness Walks Beside Me. What is characteristic for this guy’s style, what makes him unique, is a certain emotionality that he brings to his lead riffs. They walk a tightrope between being cheesy and deeply affecting when done with the right touch. That touch, I’ve found, is how developed the songs are. Enter Wolfheart, the home of Saukkonen‘s least developed songs.
Until now, that is. What defines King of the North is that the songs are developed so that they take some small turns off the beaten path of the verse – chorus – verse format. This is done just enough that the material makes the guitar playing shine enough to carry the songs. Another point of improvement here is heft. Some of the songs are both written and produced to feel like a ton of bricks are suddenly dropped on you, leading the way for the emotive playing (consider this relative to the genre though, fans of extreme metal won’t be impressed). Other spots, like on “Knell” features some piano leads that remind me somewhat of how Barren Earth used them on Curse Of The Red River before echoing this tune with the guitar. “The King” sports an Amorphis influenced folk tune with some clean vocals that sound uncannily like metalcore cleans over actual melodic death metal. On paper that should make me puke but it just works. In fact, there are clean vocals used on a lot of this material but it’s mostly not of the nasal variety and they are placed well. I’m in shock that I’m actually enjoying a melodic death metal album after the genre shat the bed this year. While I think a song or two could be cut to make it leaner and meaner, I admit defeat. This is good.
