50 Best Hard Rock & Heavy Metal Albums Of 2017

The title of the third album by melodic death/black metal maestros Wolfheart is Tyhjyys.

“Tyhjyys” is Finnish for “emptiness”. That title is entirely appropriate once you actually get the chance and listen to Wolfheart, their melancholic melo-death blues communicating the same sense of exciting grandeur and quiet hopelessness as an endlessly wide, snowy expanse.

And even though Tyhjyys is by itself a masterful exercise in how to turn something as exciting and rousing as melodic metal into a haunting display, its real success comes when it flirts with acoustic guitars, grand pianos and sombre cellos, the album’s quietest interludes providing a well-crafted atmosphere to complement the brutality.

Band leader Tuomas Saukkonen continues to cement his status as one of Finland’s elite metal figures with this record, his growls as guttural as ever, while his guitars alternate from thrashing, black metal-style rhythms through to hyper-harmonic leads in the drop of a dime, every shift being fully supported by an ever-operatic atmosphere and choral gang vocals.

And despite Wolfheart’s stock only rising ever since its formation in 2013, the self-proclaimed “winter metal” juggernauts and their phenomenal tunes deserve to be shouted about as much as possible. The dark metallers are perfect for fans of similarly melodic-yet-depressive titans such as Insomnium, so listen to them as much as you can, whenever you can.