Year: 2024
Label: self-released

Arriving at Finnish Vesper Kenning’s third full-length album which, according to the band, concludes the “Terrestrial vortex trilogy”, a grander picture starts to emerge. The group remain as enigmatic as ever, perhaps even more so, but the larger picture of the mysteries, themes and symbols appears.

We certainly didn’t hold back our praise in our reviews of the two previous albums, Songs Of Verdant Bone (here) and Wandering Suns And Harvest Moons (here). But it’s only now here, at the end of a cycle, that one can truly appreciate the whole. And perhaps chuckle a bit at how involuted the band become in their own intertextuality and symbolism. A chuckle which, I’m quite sure, the band join in on.

Cyclicism is in the heart of this trilogy. The motifs of the cover artworks are all cyclical; and there is a cycle within the very names. From the verdant bones of summer to the harvest moons of autumn to the novenaries of winter, this vortex echoes the seasons.

And Eldritch Winter itself is divided into cycles: there are three song cycles of three songs each, each concluding with a song in Finnish. These, in turn, relate to the paraphernalia included in the box. Again, Vesper Kennings take things one step further in comparison to the previous release: the album comes with three envelopes, each with a letter (in Finnish) and various images, each relating somehow to the songs. Some correspondences are more obvious, some more obscure. I will not spoil any of them – there is no small amount of joy to be derived from examining the contents of the envelopes and correlating them to the music.

Redundant to say this, but, like the previous albums, Eldritch Winter is a beautiful artifact to possess.

Musically, Eldritch Winter continues in a very logical direction in comparison to its two predecessors. It leans ever more toward an acoustic sound, shying away from the flair that was present on Songs Of Verdant Bone and waning on Wandering Suns And Harvest Moons. For the most part, the psychedelia of the debut is gone, leaving a sound that can be described as… well, I stick with calling Vesper Kennings Finnish wyrd folk. It’s not neofolk, it’s not folk, but it’s also both of those.

At first sight, the album appears to be far more stripped down than the preceeding albums – but that’s only surface appearances. As one delves deeper into the album and penetrates the surface of first impressions, one notices that Eldritch Winter is anything but stripped down. In some ways it is understated in expression, echoing the barren solitude of winter, but the arrangements are nuanced and varied. The acoustic guitars are aided by bass, cellos, piano, synths and even a bit of subtle electric guitar, adding flesh upon bone without losing the subtle and focused nature of the arrangements.

And, to be sure, there are passages of psychedelia here, such as the organ on Body Of Dissolution.

Eldritch Winter doesn’t need the whine of wintry winds to sound hivernal – although it does use a bit of that too. No, the essence of winter is woven into the acoustic guitars and vocalist S. Kalliomäki’s unpolished, charismatic baritone. Take for example Varjoihin koteloitu vastaus: the deep tone of the guitar and the slight reverb on it. There just is something undeniably wintry in it all. It sounds like deep drifts of snow under a darkening midwinter sky.

But even though there is plenty of that deep, unyielding somberness of dark, dreary winter days on Eldritch Winter, it’s not a depressive or dark album. At least not exclusively. It also encompasses the crystal clear purity of spirit of calm, silent, sunny February days and the budding hope of the last days of heavy, wet snow just before spring. And in a most fitting way to a cyclical trilogy, the album ends with Yö = Auringonsynnyttäjä (Night = birthgiver of the sun), where night sings a paean to the sun and the birth of light is found within the bosom of darkness. A portent of spring if there ever was one.

With Eldritch Winter, Vesper Kennings have assembled another most impressive body of music. At first, the somewhat more introvert and reclusive nature of the album made it seem the least of the three to me, but by now I consider it the most perfected iteration of Vesper Kennings’ esoteric folk sound thus far.

Getting into Eldritch Winter may take a bit longer than getting into the previous albums, but it’s a wintry journey worth it. Singling out favourite tracks from Vesper Kennings’ discography, I still find mine from Songs Of Verdant Bone; but as a whole, Eldritch Winter’s stark atmosphere and maturity of expression raise it that small but significant inch above its predecessors.

Visit Vesper Kennings on their official website, Bandcamp or Facebook