The Spirit Of Ukko is the debut full-length studio album

Studio album

A studio album is an album made up of tracks recorded in the controlled environment of a recording studio. A studio album contains newly written and recorded or previously unreleased or remixed material, distinguishing itself from a compilation or reissue album of previously recorded material, or...

 by the Finnish heavy metal

Heavy metal music

Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...

 band Kiuas

Kiuas

Kiuas is a heavy metal band from Espoo, Finland. Their music has influences from power metal, folk metal and different styles of extreme metal. Influences from progressive metal can also be heard in some songs.-History:...

, released on May 4, 2005 by Spinefarm Records

Spinefarm Records

Spinefarm Records is a Finland-based record label focusing mainly on heavy metal artists. In 1999, a sub-label titled Spikefarm Records was started by Sami Tenetz from Thy Serpent...

. "Ukko" in Finnish mythology

Finnish mythology

Finnish mythology is the mythology that went with Finnish paganism which was practised by the Finnish people prior to Christianisation. It has many features shared with fellow Finnic Estonian mythology and its non-Finnic neighbours, the Balts and the Scandinavians...

 is the greatest of the pagan gods and is a Finnish male name. The Japanese version features a bonus song eponymously titled from the Winter in June

Winter in June

Winter in June is an EP released by the heavy metal band Kiuas, released on May 29, 2004 by the Rage of Achilles label. This release would secure Kiuas for a deal with Spinefarm Records...

EP. The third quarter piece of the song, "Across the Snows" is sung in Finnish

Finnish language

Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...

.

Track listing

1. "The Spirit of Ukko" − 5:52
2. "On Winds of Death We Ride" − 4:20
3. "No More Sleep for Me" − 4:06
4. "Warrior Soul" − 5:48
5. "Until We Reach the Shore" − 4:27
6. "Across the Snows" − 5:59
7. "Thorns of a Black Rose" − 4:49
8. "And the North Star Cried" − 6:59
9. "Winter in June" − 4:24 (Japan
   Japan
   Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
   
   ese bonus track)

Band members

• Ilja Jalkanen − vocals
• Mikko Salovaara − guitars
  Electric guitar
  An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
  
  
• Markku Näreneva − drums
  Drum kit
  A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
  
  
• Atte Tanskanen − keyboards
  Musical keyboard
  A musical keyboard is the set of adjacent depressible levers or keys on a musical instrument, particularly the piano. Keyboards typically contain keys for playing the twelve notes of the Western musical scale, with a combination of larger, longer keys and smaller, shorter keys that repeats at the...
  
  
• Teemu Tuominen − bass
  Bass guitar
  The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
  
  

Guest musicians

• Strings
  String instrument
  A string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...
  
   on "And the North Star Cried" arranged by Mikko Salovaara and performed by the Arctic string quartet:
• Karo Tiuraniemi − violin
  Violin
  The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
  
  
• Laura Airola − violin
• Suvi Oskala − viola
  Viola
  The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...
  
  
• Essi Toivonen − cello
  Cello
  The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
  
  

Production and other

• All music
  Music
  Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
  
   and lyrics
  Lyrics
  Lyrics are a set of words that make up a song. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist or lyrist. The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics are abstract, almost unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation, meter, and symmetry of...
  
   written by Mikko Salovaara, except "No More Sleep for Me" by Ilja Jalkanen.
• Mixed by Nino Laurenne at Sonic Pump Studios.
• Strings recorded at The Helsinki Pop&Jazz Conservatory by Juuso Kujala.
• Mastered by Mika Jussila at Finnvox Studios.
• Cover concept and photography by Harri Halme/Shadow Mechanics.
• Cover illustrations and logos by Janne "ToxicAngel" Pitkänen.
• Cover layout by Janne/Spinefarm.