WINTERSUN

Jari Mäenpää is man who likes to take his sweet time. WINTERSUN's music absolutely demand it, of course. Records as detailed and dense as the Finnish entity's hallowed eponymous debut and its eventual follow-up (and this new album's conceptual forebear) "Time I" (2012) cannot be simply dashed off in an afternoon. Even so, Mäenpää's project has now clocked up two decades of semi-active service, with only four studio albums to show for it. Thank goodness that the Finn's meticulous nature is being used for noble purposes.

Seven years have dissolved away since the last WINTERSUN album, "The Forest Seasons", which received a more equivocal response than its predecessors. Nonetheless, the Finns' unique allure is alive and well, and "Time II" is one of very few albums that deserve to be tagged long-awaited. Fans of insanely dexterous, sumptuously melodic heavy metal are a patient lot, but do hurry the fuck up, please.

Any lingering resentment towards Mäenpää's methodical approach will dissipate within seconds of "Time II"'s blearily magical beginning. Once again, those who crave this kind of extravagance will be plunged immediately into the hazy lushness of WINTERSUN's virtuoso world. Japanese-style folk melodies float through the ether to destinations unknown. Alien textures emerge from spiraling synth lines. And a gentle, acoustic guitar intro gives way to the first of countless avalanches of coruscating riffs and overlapping melodies, Mäenpää's hostile rasp afloat on surging currents.

The musicianship is jaw-dropping, as expected, but there is such a powerful, emotional component to "The Way Of The Fire", and the ambitious epics that follow it, that "Time II" never becomes bogged down by showmanship. There are subtle departures here, too: "One With The Shadows" is a frosty but forthright exercise in windswept melancholy that, arguably against the odds, its composer has managed to pin down to an economical six minutes; while the two-minute mirage of "Ominous Clouds" pitches Mäenpää's skewed FLOYD-ian blues improvisations against a sweeping keyboard fog to scintillating effect.

However, WINTERSUN obsessives will be coming for the sprawling epics, and "Time II" concludes with two exceptionally fine examples of the form. Although undeniably ornate and indulgent, "Storm" is also an absolutely ripping blackened death metal odyssey, and one with a broad progressive streak and some of the most mind-blowing soloing that Mäenpää has yet committed to tape. Each time it seems to have reached a crescendo and calmed down a bit, it becomes even more grandiose and explosive, as yet more elegant layers of bluster are seamlessly woven together, like threads in some wildly colorful ancient tapestry. "Silver Leaves" is even more extraordinary: a deeply prog-fueled and delicately psychedelic exploration of melodic death and folk metal's outer limits, it meanders through several minutes of wistful restraint before another of Mäenpää's graceful melodies fills the sonic space, the Finn's clean vocals providing an anguished, austere counterpoint to the guitars' hypnotic and stirring warmth. 13 minutes later, the only sound that can be heard is the wind whistling through the trees, as the addictive fever dream of "Time II" fades gently away. It will return, but possibly not for a few years. These things take a minute.