To mistake Crowen for a new project is to miss the point entirely. Esa Uusimaa is a 48-year-old veteran of the Vaasa scene, a contemporary of the generation that codified this sound. His creative lineage is impeccable. Most notably, Uusimaa is a past member of Wolfheart, the “winter metal” standard-bearer led by Tuomas Saukkonen.

This connection is not trivial. Saukkonen is a figure of singular focus, a man who famously dissolved his entire roster of active, successful bands—including Before the Dawn and Black Sun Aeon—to channel all his creative energy into the singular vision of Wolfheart. It was, therefore, an event of seismic significance to those of us who follow this scene to see Saukkonen’s name listed as the session bassist for the entirety of Crowen’s ‘Where The Darkness Falls’ EP.

This was not a simple guest appearance. It was a profound act of validation, an endorsement signifying that Uusimaa’s vision was worthy of such a focused collaboration. It placed Crowen, unequivocally, within the direct canon of modern Finnish melodic death metal.

The Prologue in Six Parts

Released on December 12, 2024, ‘Where The Darkness Falls’ was a 24-minute exhibition of mastery. As the project’s auteur, Uusimaa handled composition, lyrics, vocals, guitars, synths, samples, and the project’s recording and mixing. He was joined by Saukkonen on bass and Mikko Merilinna (of Khroma) contributing guitars. The EP is a potent and muscular work. It opens with the title track, a cinematic piece bolstered by guest clean vocals from Jouni Uusimaa and a video steeped in gothic atmosphere, complete with Latin lyrical passages.

The first single, ‘Dark Forever,’ set the conceptual stage. Uusimaa has stated that the themes of this song—an exploration of an afterlife defined by “darkness, beauty and a sense of anguish”—ultimately became the central theme for the entire record. The music is a perfectly executed blend of folk-influenced melodic death metal and symphonic grandeur, earning the EP stellar marks for its dense, memorable, and “bloody good songs.”

For its first five tracks, ‘Where The Darkness Falls’ is the work of a master craftsman, a veteran proving he can execute the sound of his homeland as well as any of his peers.

And then, in its final five minutes, the EP abandons mastery and finds something infinitely more valuable: a voice.

The Pivot Point

The EP’s closing track is ‘Veri on nimeni mun’ (‘Blood Is My Name’). It is a complete departure. Sung entirely in Finnish, the song is a “melancholic, and atmospheric” piece that sheds the armor of blast beats and serrated riffing for a sound that is vulnerable, emotional, and deeply folkloric. This, as Uusimaa himself explained, was the document of a personal revelation.

“I have never enjoyed singing clean vocals, but just preferred screaming,” Uusimaa confessed in a statement earlier this year. He described this final track as taking him, as a singer and songwriter, to a “completely new territory.” The catalyst, it turns out, was not musical but artistic.

While filming the music video for ‘Dark Forever,’ Uusimaa met Jussi Aspivaara, a craftsman from the leather-working company Hiiden Nahka, who provided the video’s unsettling folk-horror masks. This encounter led Uusimaa down a new path. “After getting to know Jussi Aspivaara… I immersed myself with interesting dark folk bands,” he stated. “The melodic atmosphere and lyrics for this song were inspired by that world.”

This is the key. ‘Veri on nimeni mun’ is not just another track; it is the sound of an artist, mid-career, having his entire creative process upended by an encounter with an adjacent tradition. The EP, therefore, is not a prologue in the traditional sense; it is the journey of an artist who begins by mastering a genre and ends by discovering his own soul within it.

A New Voice Emerges

The release of ‘Veri on nimeni mun’ as a music video in February 2025—months after the EP’s initial drop—is not a standard promotional afterthought. It is a deliberate spotlighting of the EP’s most critical track. This song is the new creative statement. It is not an experiment, as it might have first appeared; it is a declaration.

The song itself is the perfect synthesis. It retains the icy, muscular foundation of the “winter metal” school; the guitars are immense, the drums are powerful. But the structure is new. The song is built not on a riff, but on an atmosphere. The synths are not a bombastic layer; they are a creeping fog.

And then there is the voice. Uusimaa’s screams are present, but they are now a texture—a violent slash of anguish against the melancholic whole. But the centerpiece of the track is the clean vocal, the very tool he “never enjoyed.” Here, it is wielded with the confidence of a man who has found his true register.

It is “strong and emotional,” as he had hoped to achieve, and it carries the profound weight of his native folk tradition. This is the sound ‘Veri on nimeni mun’ promised—not a metal band using folk elements, but an auteur expressing himself through a seamless blend of both.

The Fury of ‘Ember Wraith’

Today, Crowen has revealed the next chapter, proving the pivot to folk was not an exit, but an expansion. The new single, ‘Ember Wraith,’ is a melodic yet furious piece that serves as the first taste of a forthcoming EP, ‘Through the Dying Mist,’ set for release on February 20, 2026, via Inverse Records.

Where ‘Veri on nimeni mun’ explored melancholy, ‘Ember Wraith’ reconnects that feeling to raw power. This is a potent, striking return to the Finnish melodic death metal tradition, driven by a powerful, visceral energy. The accompanying video is a study in brutal minimalism; set within what appears to be a dark, industrial warehouse, the piece avoids narrative for pure atmosphere. Bathed in a cinematograhic dark ambience, it captures the musicians in a state of raw, physical exertion, sweaty and seemingly exhausted, letting the force of the performance speak for itself.

The lyrical narrative is a stark tale of vengeance, a thematic counterweight to the introspection of the previous track. It speaks of a protagonist “carved in stone,” returning “to the fire” not for solace, but “to end what began.” The song is built around a cold, clear purpose, a promise that “Justice burns in every step she takes.” The chorus is the song’s ultimate declaration: “Inside out the fury’s just begun… She’ll bring the end by wrath.”

A National Melancholy

The significance of this pivot becomes clear when one examines the cultural soil from which Crowen grows. This turn toward folk and the Finnish language is not merely a stylistic choice; it is a profound act of tapping into the deepest wellspring of national identity.

The Finnish artistic tradition has, since the nineteenth century, been inextricably linked with its own folklore. The 1835 publication of the epic poem, ‘The Kalevala,’ was a “huge inspiration for Finnish artists” and was “important for the creation of the Finnish nation” itself. This text, and the folk traditions it collected, has been a touchstone for generations, from the paintings of Akseli Gallen-Kallela to the symphonies of Sibelius.

In the modern era, this tradition has been carried, perhaps most visibly, by the country’s heavy metal scene. Artists like Amorphis, Ensiferum, and Korpiklaani have long drawn on the Kalevala for lyrical themes and the nation’s traditional music for instrumentation, most notably the kantele, or Finnish zither, which is itself the “Finnish national instrument, based on its significance in the Kalevala.”

Uusimaa’s “immersion” in dark folk and his turn to the Finnish language is a modern, deeply personal participation in this same national, artistic lineage. He is exploring the same themes that define the academic study of the Finnish character: the complex relationship with “traditional masculinity… and shame,” the deep, almost spiritual “feelings about nature and the cosmos.”

‘Where The Darkness Falls’ was the sound of a man mastering the art of Finnish melodic death metal. It was an exceptional, powerful, and critically lauded work. But its true, lasting importance was as a chrysalis. With the deliberate focus on ‘Veri on nimeni mun’ in 2025 , we are hearing the sound of what has emerged. This is no longer just the sound of a genre; it is the sound of Esa Uusimaa. And it is a voice that speaks with the full, melancholic, and beautiful weight of his entire culture.

As you trace an artist’s discography, how important is the discovery of a singular, authentic “voice” versus the perfection of technical prowess? We invite you to share your perspective on Esa Uusimaa’s evolution and where it places Crowen in the pantheon of modern metal.