Review: Alestorm – Back Through Time

Posted on June 28, 2011 by necromoonyeti

As long as Alestorm keep doing what they do I will continue to be entertained by them. They are incredible musicians and take folk metal down a unique path. The expectations for a band of their sort are pretty demanding though. You can’t just write good music; you have to be funny, kick ass, and do it all within a narrow context–in their case pirates.

Song: Back Through Time

Three albums in, Alestorm were probably feeling the drain on original material. At first they seemed to resolve it. Back Through Time opens with a GWARish novelty. The band stumble upon a portal into the past and wage war against vikings. With lines like “you put your faith in Odin and Thor, we put ours in cannons and whores,” the door was open to develop a clever concept album.

Song: Scraping the Barrel

Unfortunately, and rather irrationally, the new novelty is dropped almost as soon as they introduce it. They got my hopes up for a rival to GWAR’s Beyond Hell, and instead went right back to the same old topics from track 2 onwards. That’s fine, but Black Sails at Midnight really raised the bar from Captain Morgan’s Revenge. “I want more wenches and mead!” was thoroughly sufficient to amuse me on their first album, where pirate metal itself was still a novelty. On Black Sails the lyrics “matured”. They weren’t just silly, they were clever, well crafted, and effective. Epic tracks like Keelhauled and Pirate Song would have amounted to nothing if they were just more mindless clamorings for loose women and alcohol.

So the second track’s chorus of “Shipwrecked! Get drunk or die!” was a definite disappointment, even if it made me giggle. The rest of the album is pretty much the same mundane thing. A few absurd lines that make you smile every time (“Slap that midget with an oar! Remove his legs with a saw!”), and a lot of mindless demands for booze. I mean, it’s not that I don’t like it. Korpiklaani have been doing pretty much the same thing now for seven albums and I still listen to them obsessively. It’s just that I expected a little bit more lyrically out of Alestorm.

At least they know it. “Many have told us that we can’t go on–That one day we’ll run out of lyrics for songs. But when the time comes to write album four, we’ll scrape at the barrel once more!” It’s just that the whole pirate vs. viking thing seemed so promising and they went nowhere with it.

Song: Death Throes of the Terrorsquid

Among the album’s high points is a pretty epic grand finale. It’s something of a conclusion to the Black Sails track Leviathan. They lost to him last time, this time they win, simple enough. The lyrics are decidedly more creative than the rest of the album. That doesn’t exactly make them poetic, but they’re at least sufficient to not make a mockery of what is a really well written song. As the pirates reach their destination and the squid emerges, black metal vocalist Ken Sorceron of Abigail Williams takes up the mic to add a whole new level of intensity that I hope we’ll hear more of on their future releases. “Epic sea battle” isn’t a theme you exactly hear much of in music, and this song is Alestorm’s best effort to date at pulling it off.

But it’s not my favorite track.

Song: The Irish Descendants – Barrett’s Privateers

The only thing I might love more than Irish folk is Irish/Canadian sea shanties. Stan Rogers might not have written Barrett’s Privateers until 1976, but it became an instant, frequently covered classic of the genre, just as authentic as anything written in the 19th century. Alestorm have established a history of cover songs. Whether covering a proper song (Flower of Scotland on Captain Morgan’s Revenge), turning a shitty pop song into something amazing (Wolves of the Sea on Black Sails at Midnight), or just trolling the hell out of us (THIS fabulous atrocity on the LTD Edition of Back Through Time), Alestorm have been consistent about including at least one cover on every album. This is the first time they’ve tackled a song that was truly excellent in its original form however, and they pulled it off to perfection.

Song: Barrett’s Privateers

The fact that Týr frontman and folk metal god Heri Joensen appears to provide a guitar solo in the middle doesn’t hurt any.

All things considered, Back Through Time is nowhere near as good as Black Sails at Midnight and ranks slightly below Captain Morgan’s Revenge, but that’s no reason to avoid it. It’s still an entertaining ride from start to finish, and one I find myself putting on repeat on a regular basis. Check it out.

Review: Falconer – Armod

Posted on June 27, 2011 by necromoonyeti

Falconer is a band I’ve been encouraged to listen to for close to a decade now, and a few song samples aside I did a fine job of ignoring them. The term “power metal”, for all the fabulous bands associated with it, is something of a caution sign. I see it and brace myself for either high-pitched whiny singing or operatic vocals excessive to the point of being cheesy, coupled with completely generic, repetitive riffs that without fail give way after the second chorus into the guitar solo equivalent of a mid-life crisis mobile.

Song: Svarta Änkan

Thankfully, Armod is not that kind of power metal album. You might think it is briefly on the first track, but there are early signs of deviation. Within 45 seconds Mathias Blad softly explodes onto the stage with a vocal performance reminiscent of Vintersorg’s work with Otyg. Not too much later (around 1:20) the guitarist changes course, mimicking the vocals with deep and pronounced tones that likewise resemble Otyg. Sure, the structure of the song follows a power metal standard, complete with a slightly overdone guitar solo that you hear coming a mile off, but Mathias’s singing, his choice of Swedish over English, and that folk metal style guitar that accompanies him and takes the spotlight around 5:15 all point to something more.

Song: Herr Peder Och Hans Syster

That something fully manifests in the second track, Dimmornas Drottning, but I’m going to go ahead and post Herr Peder Och Hans Systerinstead, it being my favorite on the album. It lacks the violin that distinguishes Dimmornas Drottning (another feature reminiscent of Otyg), but the vocals and guitar pair up just perfectly from start to finish. And with the exception of a mild reminder in the chorus, you would never know the band had heard of power metal let alone performed it for ten years. It’s about as folk metal as you can get with nothing but guitars, drums and vocals.

Song: Griftefrid

What’s really great about Armod though is that it’s not a folk metal album either. It will go down as folk/power metal, and rightly so I suppose, but what I’m really hearing is a conscious melding of styles. When I say some of the songs remind me of Otyg, it goes beyond a mere coincidental resemblance. I think their music was actively influential on the creation of this album. Likewise, Griftefrid offers up the power of black metal-influenced symphonic acts like Equilibrium because, I think, Falconer actively listens to music of that sort and made a conscious effort to integrate it into their own sound.

Song: Eklundapolskan

The end result is one of the most stylistically diverse albums I’ve heard all year, and it is diverse in the best possible way. This is the sort of album you could have never experienced in the dark ages of the 90s, when people still had to hunt down new music in person and pay hard cash for every release. I could be wrong, but I think Falconer really did their research on this one.

The album’s only down side is a set of “bonus” tracks at the end, comprised of songs from the album proper remixed with English vocals. Skip them, I beseech you. The Swedish vocals are the centerpoint of this album, around which all of the various metal trends Falconer incorporate coalesce.

Review: Týr – The Lay of Thrym

Posted on June 14, 2011 by necromoonyeti

2009’s By the Light of the Northern Star was a huge transition for Týr, the only band I know of from the Faroe Islands. No more slow, plodding, progressive folk metal. The band became a bit more aggressive, a bit faster… a bit more in keeping with the folk metal standard. It was still distinctly and undeniably Tyr; I can only fairly describe it as a change for the worse if I preface that it’s still better than most else out there. But for better or worse, it was something more like “heavy folk metal” than “progressive folk metal.” To sum up The Lay of Thrym in a nutshell, it takes the band’s new approach and improves on it.

In which case, you might say it’s pretty damn good. The opening track, Flames of the Free is just deliciously catchy, and, unlike Hold the Heathen Hammer High, it’s not so redundant that a dozen plays will demote it from enjoyable to obnoxious. Such a track does exist, unfortunately, in the form of Take Your Tyrant, but it is conveniently further in and thus easily skipped when it begins to wear on you. It is also followed by my favorite song on the album, Evening Star:

Which is a kind of unlikely contender. I mean, if you read these articles you have an idea of what I listen to by now. I’m not exactly into rock ballads. Tyr have always been their best at slower tempos though, in my opinion, and here they pulled off something completely captivating. I think it might be the most beautiful song they’ve written, and it is well placed to ease off of Take Your Tyrant.

The next track I want to highlight is the album’s second: Shadow of the Swastika. For a band as popular as Tyr (at least by folk metal standards), it’s a really ballsy inclusion. The song is a reaction to ignorant accusations that Tyr are racist for their Norse-centric lyrics and imagery. (The band’s logo includes an ancient runic symbol at one time employed by the Nazi party.) It simultaneously denounces anyone who thinks the modern generation should feel guilty about crimes committed 70 years ago and anyone who attempts to justify those crimes.

That might seem like common sense, but it’s something difficult to state. The critics who labeled Tyr racist in the first place are likely to interpret this song as saying “It’s time to get over the Holocaust” and have a field day, but obviously that’s not what Tyr are getting at, and I think they did an excellent job of making their case to anyone willing to hear it. The song is significant because they make no apologies. They aren’t saying “Please try to see that we aren’t racist,” they’re saying it should be obvious that they aren’t racist, and if you thought otherwise fuck off. Maybe some people will find it immature–will think that such accusations don’t deserve a response in the first place. But having made the choice to tackle a touchy subject, Tyr did it right.

You who think the hue of your hide means you are to blame, and your father’s misdeeds are his son’s to carry in shame: Not mine, I’ll take no part. You can shove the sins of the your father where no light may pass, and kiss my Scandinavian ass.

You who think the hue of your hide means you get to blame the black for your own faults and so bring humanity shame: Make sure you count me out of the ranks of you inbred morons with your sewer gas, and kiss my Scandinavian ass.

Pages of the past, how long will they last? A lie lost in the legacy of fools left us this parody unsurpassed. Pages of the past, how long will they last? The shadow of the Swastika by fools’ fears now for far too long has been cast.

I will leave you with the fifth track, Hall of Freedom. The album seems to stack its catchiest or otherwise most noticeable songs early on, with the final five requiring a bit more attention to hit home, thus I’ve only discussed and sampled the first half of The Lay of Thrym here. Regardless, it is a solid product nearly to the end (I could live without the bonus cover songs). My final verdict on The Lay of Thrym: It’s a big step up from By the Light of the Northern Star, which was a pretty decent album itself. Don’t expect the vibe of say, Eric the Red or Land on here, but it’s still no disappointment. To fans and newcomers alike I highly recommend it.

My Top 5 Albums of 2011 So Far

Posted on June 7, 2011 by necromoonyeti

Well, it’s June, and as usual I’m getting behind in music. There is a lot more to keep up with this year than the last, and I’ve only downloaded 30 new releases so far. Hopefully that will change over the summer. Allow me to kick off three months of more active music reviews with my top five albums of 2011 thus far.

5. Moonsorrow – Varjoina Kuljemme Kuolleiden Maassa

Moonsorrow have a lot of material out there, and suffice to say I haven’t heard enough of it. I am used to really long songs in black metal, but not in folk, and I always find myself treating them like the former, playing their albums for ambient effect and paying close attention only where the music reaches out and demands it. I’ve listened to all 30 minutes of Tulimyrsky 19 times apparently, and I don’t remember it. Likewise, I forgot they’d released an album this year until I was browsing last.fm and discovered that I’d listened to it 13 times.

So take that for what it’s worth. This album has four full songs with a few 1-2 minute tracks in between. The two middle ones of the four are decidedly more catchy, whether you want to call them better or not. Moonsorrow may never move me as successfully as Finsterforst did copying their style on the underrated masterpiece Zum Tode Hin, but nevertheless here is an album I will probably never tire of, even as I never fully embrace it. I want to call it my fifth favorite of the year so far, but it’s so difficult to place.

Their songs are too long for youtube, but this video fits in the vast majority of track 5, Huuto.

4. Korpiklaani – Ukon Wacka

Another year, another Korpiklaani album. Since 2003 they’ve released seven. That’s 83 songs that all sound pretty much the same and are all either about beer, drinking beer, being out of beer, having a hangover, or killing your hangover by drinking beer. But while they might not be folk metal’s most poetic troupe, they are hands down the most fun of the lot.

Ukon Wacka doesn’t really have any down time. From start to finish it’s a consistently enjoyable, catchy album. Sure, every song could have appeared on every other album without being out of place, but unlike on many of their others you’ll never find yourself skipping tracks. And like on Karkelo, they saved the best track for last, encouraging you to stick around:

3. Altar of Plagues – Mammal

I never really talk about White Tomb. I got it the first day it leaked and have listened to it dozens of times since, but it’s not something I feel inclined to sing the praises of. With the exception of the first few minutes of Watchers Restrained, there was never a point where I could tell people wow, you’ve got to hear this. It’s something a bit more personal–the sort of thing I like to play when I’m working late and really need to concentrate. It’s got a slow brooding energy that you can just feed off of. It empowers the listener without ever demanding much attention. Mammal can be described similarly, but should you choose to shut off the lights, sit back, and just soak it in, you’ll find it has a lot more to offer than their first album. I’ve only listened to it five times so far, but I feel confident placing it among the best. Here are the first 15 minutes of the opening track:

2. Krallice – Diotima

Here we get into the albums I consider true masterpieces. Krallice have pioneered a sound that few artists are physically capable let alone creatively inclined to emulate. But their last album, Dimensional Bleedthrough, was a bit of a disappointment. Last.fm claims I have listened to it twelve times, and I’m here to tell you I don’t remember the slightest thing about it. While it might have been more technical and refined than their first release, it lacked those standout moments that made songs like Wretched Wisdom and Forgiveness In Rot so unforgettable.

Diotima reclaims the beauty and emotion of their first album, and couples it with the mind-bending technical skill and complexity they have further developed since then. This is easily my second favorite album of 2011 at the moment, and may in time lay claim to the top slot. I highlighted Telluric Rings last week, so allow me to point out my other favorite, the title track. The lead guitar from 5:30 to 7:20 will leave you speechless.

1. Falkenbach – Tiurida

I was both shocked and disappointed to see this album go almost entirely unnoticed. I mean, Vratyas Vakyas is the second most important figure in the history of folk and viking metal after Quorthon. Yet even on wikipedia’s quite inclusive article on metal releases in 2011 it goes unmentioned. This would be excusable were it the washed-up product of an artist past his prime, but Tiurida is my favorite album of 2011.

The only complaint I have read is that it’s too repetitive, but that’s exactly what Falkenbach is meant to be. There’s a difference between repetitive and generic, and he has always been far from the latter. Indeed, it was my fear that Tiurida, his first release in six years, might lack that creative genius present in all his prior works and compensate by at last substituting some stylistic variance. But Vakyas never lost his edge, and has here created his best work since En Their Medh Riki Fara fifteen years ago. Let the glorious opening and closing tracks speak for themselves:

Song of the Day: Аркона – Покровы Небесного Старца

Posted on April 10, 2011 by necromoonyeti

I have never been to Russia. I imagine they have cities and cars and year-end clearance sales and pizza delivery just like anyone else. But that’s just being boring and realistic. I would rather think of Russia as that savage, untamed land to the east, from whence road the Hun and the Mongol–a mysterious, Dionysian place in which primeval landscapes produce warriors with the spirits of beasts. Arkona seem to perfectly capture this. Their music dances care-free about you but is poisonous to the touch.

There’s something about Slavic languages that sounds ruthlessly vicious when screamed–a very different vibe from the power and command of Germanic tongues. At the same time, that typical deep Russian chorus sound is always so encompassing, embracing everything around it except, perhaps, the listener. Arkona employ ample quantities of both, and fuse it with brilliant folk. If someone described a sound as “one with nature” to me I’d probably roll my eyes, but the nature here presented is a pack of wolves delighting in the kill.

I don’t know, this particular song has just really struck me lately. Ot Serdtsa K Nebu is one of my most listened-to albums, but perhaps because of the lengthy intro I never took sufficient notice of the opening track before. “Shrouds of Celestial Sage”, or “Pokrovy Nebesnogo Startsa”, or “Покровы Небесного Старца”, however you want to write it, isn’t Arkona’s most beautiful song, but I think it might be their greatest success at melding such meledies with a characteristically eastern savagery.

The explosion at 5:03 is one of the most epic moments in metal, and the sound quality of a youtube video cannot do it justice. Also, Miss Masha Arhipova is the most awesome person ever. Yes, that’s her screaming.

Review: Turisas – Stand Up and Fight

Posted on March 3, 2011 by necromoonyeti

Turisas’s last release, The Varangian Way, got my vote for album of the year in 2007. It was a concept album, as so many monumental releases have been, telling the story of a band of viking soldiers of fortune traveling through Kievan Rus, intent on joining Byzantium’s Varangian Guard. Through sweeping symphonics, gritty folk, and a small but significant dose of progressive rock, the travelers encounter new lands, pass through Veliky Novgorod, party hard in king Yaroslav’s court, long for home while daring Dnieper rapids, and eventually arrive at the most majestic city in the world. (The back cover of the album is a map of Russia with each track title placed in its relevant location.) The lyrics might be shallow at times, and the English of questionable quality, but Turisas harness the power of names in a way I’ve never encountered before. When the central character raises “a toast to our generous host . . . ruler of Rus from coast to coast”, it’s the chanting of the Norse rendering of his name–Jarisleif! Jarisleif!–that really drills home the ruler’s greatness. The final, triumphal ending never mentions “Constantinople”. Nygård shouts “Tsargrad!” The chorus responds with “Konstantinopolis!” “The Golden Horn lives up to its name.” And the final resounding proclamation: “Great walls! Great halls! Greatest of all, Miklagard!”

I think it is the historic allusions, and the intensity with which they are employed, that really tip the scales from mere greatness to a masterpiece. If you have any fascination with history, you can’t help but be sucked in.

Stand Up and Fight is not nearly so consistant. At face value it certainly appears to be a continuation of the concept album. Hagia Sophia graces the cover. The opening track is called “The March of the Varangian Guard”, and the final track “The Bosphorus Freezes Over”. After a few listens, I caught on that, these three references aside, the album really has nothing to do with The Varangian Way. If you dig into the lyrics though, there are a few other Easter eggs.

The track most musically reminiscent of The Varangian Way is Venetoi! Prasinoi!

(Due to some bs copywrite issue you’ll have to click the link to hear this one.)

It’s a song about a chariot race, something I tend to associate with earlier Roman culture. If you plug “Venetoi” into wikipedia though, it redirects you specifically to the “Byzantine era” subsection of chariot racing. The use of lesser known names though isn’t at all emphasized like it is in The Varangian Way. The allusions are more subtle, meant I think to give a feeling of continuity without forcing the band to focus exclusively on one general topic. Track title aside, this song could take place in Rome proper.

Of course, The Varangian Way’s lyrics were dubious at times–(What the hell does the Nile river have to do with traveling through Rus to Constantinople?)–and their English was, if usually grammatically sound, not always quite on the mark. In the absence of allusions and grand proclamations, this is much more apparent on Stand Up and Fight. Consider Fear the Fear.

It opens with the lines “Bravery, as we’ve seen on TV: Explosions and swords, hot girls in reward.” How awkward is that? The song continues on with more words than most, and I’m pretty sure they’re attempting to convey some sort of message, but I don’t have a clue what it is. Yet the awkwardness isn’t always a bad thing. Skip to the last minute, and you’ll hear Nygård screaming “Die! Die you sucker! Let me go! Let me free motherfucker!” The way he does it, it’s just as cool as it is corny. It reminds me of Devin Townsend and Mikael Akerfeldt’s epic duet at the end of Ayreon’s “Loser”. … Well, that’s really a stretch, but that song is fucking awesome in ways I can barely comprehend, and I’ll take any excuse to link it:

Corny lyrics also play a hand in my favorite song on the album, Hunting Pirates.

(Due to some bs copywrite issue you’ll have to click the link to hear this one.)

Ok, first of all, it’s called Hunting Pirates. What the hell? The stuff Nygård babbles is ridiculous. “Kill them all! Let them die! Scum they are! Foe of mankind!” The music though, and his vocal style, are so fun that the cheese is almost a good thing. Besides, when he shouts “It is you who are the bad guys!” he’s not necessarily out to save the world. Plenty of folk metal bands are equally ridiculous, Turisas just take the less popular side. If if was a song about being a pirate, I’d laugh at the lines and not think twice about them.

My verdict on Stand Up and Fight: It’s catchy. It’s corny. It’s not The Varangian Way, but it’s miles beyond Battle Metal. Bare with the lyrics; they definitely overextend themselves in contemplation a few times, but for the most part it might only be their cultivation of a “good guy” persona that makes them appear any worse for wear than Alestorm’s demands for “more wenches and mead.” I mean, when I saw them live Nygård was chugging a bottle of vodka throughout the set.

Oh, while I was looking around youtube for functional links (without much success) I did find this:

70,000 Tons of… wait what?

Posted on December 5, 2010 by necromoonyeti

Hell died and went to Miami.

I know how to smell a scam, and this thing reeks. But I couldn’t write it off so easily, because I found it through a band’s official tour schedule. So I started looking around at a bunch of different band sites, a bunch of reputable music magazines, everything I could think of, and sure enough, it appears to be legit. If it is a scam, it’s about the most well played one I’ve ever encountered. I honestly think this is real.

So you probably figure, ok, cruises are for yuppies and old people, it’s probably going to be a lot of cheesy hair metal, washed up gimmicks, and no name bands. It certainly isn’t going to be the most impressive names in metal, all playing at least two sets a piece, chilling on the deck getting hammered with the fans between performances, right? …Right?…

Blind Guardian, Týr, Finntroll, Ensiferum, Korpiklaani, Amon Amarth, and Iced Earth top the lineup. I’m not fucking kidding. This cruise includes Nevermore, Marduk, Sonata Arctica, Moonspell, Rage, Epica, Dark Tranquility, Testament, Obituary, Exodus, Fear Factory, Gamma Ray, Unleashed, and a Bathory cover band consisting of members of Mayhem, Einherjer, Dimmu Borgir, Thyrfing, and Primordial.

On a cruise ship.

I think I just crapped my pants.

According to the creator of all this, “I live in Vancouver, BC, very close to the cruise ship terminal. So one day about three years ago I was sitting with my friends on my balcony having a few beers. Obviously we had one too many, because I remember asking those guys, hey, wouldn’t that be cool to charter one of these and put a heavy metal festival on? That was when 70000TONS OF METAL was born.”

Hail to the Hammer: Music for October (part 1)

Posted on October 1, 2010 by necromoonyeti

What an awesome month. Forget Christmas, Halloween is where it’s at. Zombie movie marathons, kids walking around dressed as ghouls and barbarians, all the candy in the world, how can you beat it? And considering Christmas has its own devoted genre of music, why shouldn’t this (far superior) autumnal advent?

I thought I’d post up ten of my favorite “songs of the season” for your enjoyment.

Månegarm – Ur själslig död
I don’t know, maybe it’s just their unusual name, but I find myself often forgetting that Månegarm exist. I really shouldn’t. They’ve put out some impressive music.

Finntroll – Trollhammaren
I never saw the English translation of these lyrics until I came across this particular video, and now I love the song even more. “Amongst the shadows rides a beast like a black tree, gripping hard a mighty hammer, looking for weak Christian blood. He is not human, not fragile and weak like you. You will be helpless. No eyes see your end.”

Troll Bends Fir/Troll Gnet El – Strawberry Berserk
No one has ever quite settled on a proper means to transliterate Тролль Гнёт Ель, but whatever we call them they certainly fit the occation. The title of this song makes no sense to me, so I’m just going to assume it’s about getting really drunk.

Korpiklaani – Kohmelo
Korpiklaani manage to release a new album every year, with six since 2003 and another planned for February. As can be seen from their most recent one, this has been no deterrent to their quality. I know I linked this once before, but I can’t resist putting it up again – by far my favorite song by them.

Myrkgrav – Endeoner
Myrkgrav, like so many bands of the genre a solo project, composed this anthem to close his only full length album, Trollskau, Skrømt og Kølabrenning.

Thyrfing – Mjölner
I don’t listen to Thyrfing all that much over all, but Mjölner has one of the most ass-kicking melodies in metal.

Ensiferum – Victory Song
In this ten minute epic the chorus says it all. “Swords in their hands, they killed each and every man who dared to invade their sacred land. Victory songs are rising in the night, telling all of their undying strength and might.”

Pagan Reign – Печаль Сварога (Novgorodian Folk Dance)
Pagan Reign hail from Russia. Though they broke up after their 2006 release, the feel of the band remains largely intact under the offshoot project Tverd (Твердь). Also, this track gets my vote for the greatest intro ever.

Falkenbach – Heathenpride
Falkenbach’s contributions to viking/pagan metal cannot be overstated. Heathenpride tells the tale of a band of missionaries who ravage the northern lands in the name of Christ. With a sacrifice to Odin and Tyr, a pagan king calls for revenge and slaughters the Christian invaders. A happy ending if ever I’ve heard one. As it relates to actual history, Saint Boniface felled the sacred Donar Oak, near Fritzlar, Germany, in 723. Thirty-one years later he was put to the sword by pagans in Friesland, northern Holland. The Christians were, at best, just as barbaric as the pagans they sought to convert, and far less justified in their actions. Boniface’s death can be seen as one of the few pagan triumphs as Christians raped and pillaged their land. Whether Heathenpride is telling this story or some similar one that I am unaware of, the point is still a strong one.

Bathory – Hammerheart
The late Quorthon, father of viking metal, had once intended Twilight of the Gods to be his final album, and this was its closing track. We’ll see him in Valhalla.

Now that the winds call my name
And my star has faded, hardly a glimpse up in the empty space
And the wise one-eyed great father in the sky stilled my flame

For the ones who stood me near
And you few who were me dear
I ask of thee to have no doubts and no fears

For when the great clouds fills the air
And the thunder roars from oh, so far away up in the sky
Then for sure you will know that I’ve reached the joyous hall up high

With my blood brothers at side
All sons of father with one eye
We were all born in the land of the blood on ice

And now all you who might hear my song
Brought to you by the northern wind, have no fear
Though the night may seem so everlasting and forever dark

There will come a golden dawn
At ends of nights for all ye upon whom
The north star always shines

The vast gates to hall up high
Shall stand open wide and welcome you with all its within
And Odin shall hail us bearers of a pounding hammerheart

Beer Metal

Posted on April 11, 2010 by necromoonyeti

Anyone who’s gone out after a Dropkick Murphys concert knows that barroom singalongs are not a thing merely of the past. But metal fans might not be so inclined, drifting off rather to less accessible places than the pub: enchanted meadows, the depths of hell, their parents’ basement, etc. Me, I would go to Finland. It was not until Ensiferum exploded into the world in 2001 that I realized quite how compatible beer and metal could be. I distinctly recall making pretty much everyone I knew at the time listen to “Goblins’ Dance”:

Ensiferum were not the first Finns to cross the Baltic at three hundred and twenty kilobits per second, but Finntroll, who released their debut in 1999, Midnattens Widunder, were just too bizarre at first to be more than a novelty. The band sang in Swedish (because it sounds more evil than Finnish, so they say) and merged some pretty dark metal with a Finnish folk style known as Humppa. On Visor Om Slutet they went acoustic and introduced kazoo solos. On Nattfödd and the Trollhammaren they incorporated something I can only properly describe as “pirate metal”, and on Ur jordens djup they went Caribbean. There newest album, Nifelvind, came out this February, and your guess is as good as mine. Raise a pint and bang your head, there’s really no other way to react to this. Here’s my favorite track off of it, “Under bergets rot”:

Korpiklaani really perfected this weird Finnish folk metal genre though. They appeared in 2003 out of the ashes of another folk metal band, Shaman, which I’ve not heard, and managed to release six albums in seven years. Korpiklaani are probably the most tame band on this list, a feat they accomplish not by turning down the distortion so much as by really infusing the folk and harnessing a talent to write an endless number of catchy, fairly optimistic songs. It wouldn’t matter which album I take the sample from; they all sound the same, and believe me, a decade from now I hope I can still say that. Enjoy “Kohmelo”, off of their 2009 album, Karkelo. The bitrate on this video is horrible, but you’ll get the idea:

After releasing a string of demos in the late 90s, Turisas put out their first full length in 2004. What can I say? It wasn’t very good. Despite offering drinking songs like “One More” (during which the frontman consumes an obscene amount of vodka live), they really seemed to miss the wave. But oh how the beer gods shined upon them in 2007. The Varangian Way was easily my favorite album of the year. It combines an odd mix of folk and prog (that word bears a horrible connotation in my mind, but Turisas do it right) with a ten track concept album telling the journey of Finnish viking mercenaries to Constantinople. I can’t call the whole album ‘beer metal’, though it’s a masterpiece, but the party atmosphere is a lot more apparent live. I present you with “In the Court of Jarisleif”, in which these viking travelers reach Kiev and well, get really wasted:

I could go on to tell of how Lordi won the 2006 Eurovision competition, an interesting testament to the odd ability of Finnish bands to be heavy, ridiculous, and yet still oddly appealing to the masses, but this topic does not require I stick to one country necessarily. I think I will conclude this chronology of heavy metal drinking music then with a short sail over to Scotland. Alestorm did not form until 2004, and released their first album in 2008. Upon doing so, pirate metal was no longer just a quirky side of Finntroll. (Interestingly, Trollhammaren and Nattfödd were released the same year Alestorm formed. A coincidence? I don’t know. The two bands have toured together.) I never liked rum personally, but I’ll take a shot for these guys. Enjoy “Keelhauled”, off of 2009’s Black Sails at Midnight. Yes, someone just said “yo-ho-ho” in a song and you didn’t roll your eyes:

And there our short journey ends. Folk metal emerged in the 90s, and due credit should be given to the likes of Skyclad and Cruachan, but the 21st century, and specifically Finland, marked its explosion from a small niche genre into one comparable in scale to big guns like death, black, and power metal. More to the point of this post though, always remember that folk is a celebration of the past, and that our forefathers were all alcoholics.

Thankfully, Finntroll, Korpiklaani, and the like incorporated humppa into metal and not the reverse. I leave you with a terrifying alternative:

Unholy Offerings, October-Present

Posted on January 21, 2010 by necromoonyeti

I must have really been out of it these last three months. I was looking over some year-end lists and saw Arkona… then Kalevala… then Nokturnal Mortum… Since when did they all have new albums out? So I decided enough of this and got out my shovel. 1,097 album topics flagged as metal later, I had nine new releases by great bands between October 1st and now, and one from September that seemed sufficiently overlooked to merit mention. Some came as complete surprises. Others I’d acquired and then promptly forgot. Krallice aside I haven’t heard any of these prior to about two days ago, if at all. But these aren’t just arbitrary bands. They are all groups that have released albums I’m quite fond of in the past:

Arkona – Goi, Rode, Goi!
Аркона – Гой, Роде, Гой!
Napalm Records, October 28th, 2009
Russia
Arkona stand, in my mind, alongside Pagan Reign/Tverd’ at the forefront of pagan metal today. Ot Serdtsa K Nebu might have been too good to be topped, but this is bound to be an enjoyable album.

Dark Funeral – Angelus Exuro pro Eternus
Regain Records, November 18th, 2009
Sweden
I expect more completely standard Swedish bm… but who can complain?

Ihsahn – After
Candlelight Records, January 26th, 2010
Norway
Emperor’s frontman needs little introduction. For those of you who were, like me, disappointed with angL, note that I did listen to After once and I think it’s pretty solid. Expect the usual prog black metal that only Ihsahn can really pull off.

Kalevala – The Cuckoo’s Children
Калевала – Кукушкины дети
Metalism Records, October 3rd, 2009
Russia
Possibly my favorite folk metal band, these guys play songs that would stand up in any epoch if you took out the metal guitar and drumming

Krallice – Dimensional Bleedthrough
Profound Lore Records, November 10th, 2009
United States
Krallice’s self titled was an easy contender for the greatest album of 2008. They take the concept of post-black metal started by Agalloch and Klabautamann and tie it to the end of an atom bomb. This will probably turn out the best album out of the ten here listed.

Månegarm – Nattväsen
Regain Records, November 19th, 2009
Sweden
An incredibly underrated folk metal band with tendencies towards black metal

Nihill – Grond
Hydra Head, October 13th, 2009
Netherlands
Ambient, spooky American-style black metal

Nokturnal Mortum – Голос Сталі (The Voice of Steel)
Oriana, December 26th, 2009
Ukraine
Nokturnal Mortum stand at the forefront of nsbm, their music so brilliant as to compensate for all radical ideologies, though their new album is a disappointment in my opinion. It’s still better than most else out there. See my review from last week for more details.

Temnozor – Haunted Dreamscapes
Темнозорь – Урочища Снов
Stellar Winter, January 3rd, 2010
Russia
Very folk-influenced nsbm, and much better than the new Nokturnal Mortum album if you ask me. (Not that it need be said, but we don’t ideologically support nsbm. The music still kicks ass.)

And last of all, for a band that never fails to confuse me:

Stíny Plamenů – Mrtvá Komora
Naga Productions, September 1st, 2009
Czech Republic
“The name of the project, Stiny Plamenu (meaning “Stinky Sewer”), was born from the feelings and emotions experienced while watching the sewer expanses illuminated by a flickering fire, the fascinating places beneath the town of Plzen became the inspiration for the lyrical content of the project. Mythological characters of the world of sewer lore soon appeared: Pan Cistirensky (“The Sewage Disposal Lord”), Pani z Vodarny (“Lady of the Waterworks”), Syn Poklopu (“Son of the Manhole Lids”), Mistr Jimac (“The Cesspool Master”) and some others. Stories about these figures are told in the guise of black metal pieces with a truly bestial sound.”
Ok, well I might have edited the English translation of the band name……