TYR - Battle Ballads review

 

TYR - Battle Ballads

Metal Blade Records

OK bias alert, I'm a huge fan of TYR. I first got into em in 2006 with their Ragnarok full length. From that point onward I was buying older releases while keeping up with their new ones. I saw em twice over a decade ago when the whole Pagan Metal thing was a trend as far as tours go. I stood around at one show and talked with Heri Joensen for close to an hour. We had an amazing conversation which I promised was not an interview. 

Fast forward a few years and it was in the second decade of the 2000s where TYR shed the cliche Viking Metal tag and went full blown amazing. Some people wanna call it Power Metal while others say Progressive Folk. All I know is when I listened to 2019's Hel full length the cliche stuff was far over. Heri Joensen was always pushing the band to this standard and it works. 

So here we have Battle Ballads the band's 9th full length. To me as a fan this is the epitome of standing in Valhala. Yes it's Power Metal out the wazoo with a battle ready hammer wielding warrior ready to fight for the cause. The guitar work on here is exceptional as well as the vocals. The song structures on a couple of tunes are folksy as hell and headbanging. 

I have to say TYR's live album, A Night at the Nordic House, from 2022 has been one of my fave releases from them as in I only listen to that one for a while. But this new one is a magnum opus. But Battle Ballads goes beyond what they've done before as being a magnificent piece of work incorporating the folk, the Viking influenced ballads and the aggressive nature. They've reached their mountain top.   

https://www.metalblade.com/us/

LISTEN HERE:

https://tyrband.bandcamp.com/album/battle-ballads

CRUACHAN - The Living And The Dead review

 

CRUACHAN - The Living And The Dead

Despotz Records

I might have mentioned it before but I'll repeat it. Yes I am a proud American and I have a huge love as well as respect for my ancestry. My back ground is Dutch, Irish and German. Personally I call em the three aces. Because of who I am it's the Dutch and Irish heritage which is strongest in me. So when it comes to metal music I do tend to love bands from Holland or Ireland. 

In this case CRUACHAN are a band from Dublin, Ireland who I got into years ago. CRUACHAN started out back in 1993. I didn't get into em until 2006 with their fifth full length release, The Morrigan's Call. Some years later they came out with Blood on the Black Robe which was an amazing album. Back then they were more of a blackened folk metal act. 

But then things changed and the albums which came next were more generic shlock. I mean think Pagan Fest or the generic battle metal saga from the late 2000s. I'm talking about cheesy stuff which was metal but with some folk styles pushed to the masses which was OK. Which brings us to this latest album. 

The Living And The Dead is a real folk metal album. There's equal parts of traditional Irish folk music and song structures touched with the metal parts. I actually liked this as opposed to bands who only add a touch of the whole folk style. I mean on here Audrey Trainor's violin playing is a standout throughout this album. The metal is more power metal in direction albeit with a touch of speed and blackened in bits amidst the folk signatures and non electric instruments.

I'd say the bottom line here is that on this release CRUACHAN are much better than on their two previous full lengths. Sound-wise this is what I'd expect for a folk metal album by an Irish band. Great stuff.

http://despotz.se/

LISTEN HERE:

https://cruachanband.bandcamp.com/album/the-living-and-the-dead

MANEGARM - Ynglinga Attens Ode review

 

MANEGARM - Ynglinga Attens Ode

Napalm Records

OK so bias alert I'm a MANEGARM fan and I love their early Viking metal releases. But hey if you're a fan of blackened pagan metal with a Viking themes then how could you not? After their early days the band bounced around to a couple of other labels. They finally ended up on Napalm Records which years ago in a review I said it was the place where good bands go to die. 

Well their first couple of releases on Napalm were average to say the least which was another confirmation of my opinion. But this year MANEGARM finally put out a great Folk Metal release that I've actually been waiting a decade for. The Viking shtick is mostly gone so the band has been doing the whole traditional Folk Metal style for many years now. On here their tenth album they've managed to get it all by hitting all the buttons.

Ynglinga Attens Ode has in all as far as the folk metal genre goes. You've got the songs about pagan myths and sagas. Which are all sung in Swedish by the way. The folk melodies and song structures are sown in with the powerful riffs. It all comes across in a grandiose effect. Not only does vocalist/bassist Erik Grawsio carry the weight on these songs, whether it's cleans, screams and howls. There's added backing vocals, male and female. Oh yeah and plenty of violin into the mix.

The bottom line here is that these Swedes have created an album that's infectious to genre fans as well as being accessible to newcomers. My biggest problem with the whole folk metal genre over the past decade has been it's generic tendencies. The older bands got stagnant. Most newer acts played it safe. Finally here we have an opus.

https://napalmrecords.com/deutsch/

LISTEN HERE:

https://manegarm.bandcamp.com/album/ynglinga-ttens-de

BERGSVRIDEN - Gastkramad review

 

BERGSVRIDEN - Gastkramad

Northern Fog Records

A few years ago I checked out this Swedish folk metal act called MIDVINTERBLOT. Yeah I'm one "those people" meaning I like folk metal. Anyways they had a cool album from 2016 called Skymning which I thought was decent as far as genre standards go. But the band had just that one album and then nothing. 

So here we BERGSVRIDEN which has three members of MIDVINTERBLOT. Both bands existed in the same time but BERGSVRIDEN has three previous full lengths to their credit. BERGSVRIDEN really don't sound similar to their other band. There's no violin, woodwinds or a female vocalist. Now they are not just a stripped down version of MIDVINTERBLOT. This is blackened folk and damm good. 

Now the mixing of folk and black metal has been done so often that I'd have to go to the archives to name every band. But let me just say there are bands who are black metal and add in some folk. And then there are bands who weave the two styles together into a beautiful tapestry. BERGSVRIDEN is obviously in the latter category. 

Musically this is on the melodic black metal side with some screechy vocals. There's cool song structures with those folk inspired galloping rhythms. Some of the tremolo picked solos come off like 60's surf influenced. Plus the drum work is exceptional. From beginning to end this is a perfect album.

https://northernfogrecords.de/

LISTEN HERE:

https://bergsvriden.bandcamp.com/

WORMWOOD - Ghostlands: Wounds From a Bleeding Earth review

WORMWOOD - Ghostlands: Wounds From a Bleeding Earth

Non Serviam Records




Years ago I was into a lot of Nordic bands that combined black metal with their local traditional music. Most of em of course were viking metal bands but others just pushed the folk stuff with some death metal thrown in. Obviously I still like it even though the trend of Pagan Fest type acts started to grow too much. Case in point, here were have WORMWOOD a five piece act from Stockholm, Sweden and this is their debut full length. 


Musically this is one big bag of folk inspired metal touching on various genres in order to bring about an epic feel to their sound. Of course when I first listened to it I thought of the band MANEGARM and as luck would have it one of WORMWOOD's guitarists plays with MANEGARM live. Of course it's also interesting since WORMWOOD started out in 2014 and hey who they sound like. Influences it's still pretty good.


Musically Ghostlands: Wounds From a Bleeding Earth is not a carbon copy of past folk inspired metal sounds. Actually its a compliment as the band takes everything which made this type of Nordic sound so epic and vibrant to the next level. As well as getting full doses of driving riffs and pounding drums there's plenty of rock melodies intertwined with the extreme metal standbys. Lots of acoustics tossed in for effect as opposed to window dressing plus the female vocals added in. Overall this will be one of my favorite releases of 2017. Extreme and upbeat, perfect to start your day with.


http://www.non-serviam-records.com/

https://wormwood-official.bandcamp.com/releases

https://www.facebook.com/WormwoodSWE

UNGFELL - Totbringaere review

UNGFELL - Totbringaere

Self Released




Who would've guessed that those accordion lessons your parents made you take as a kid were actually something you could use in the future. This is the debut full length by Swiss black metal duo UNGFELL. The band is made up of Menetekel on vocals, all guitars and yeah the accordion. The drummer's name is Infermita. Menetekel is definitely the main man on here.

On Totbringaere, the duo mixes raw second wave style black metal with their regional folk music. Along with the accordion there's also some woodwinds used. The opener "Viures Brunst" is a three minute folk intro to get you in the mood. From that point on a blackened bombast ensues with tremolo picked runs, melody tossed in and tortured vocals that could peel paint. 

There are two things that standout about this release. The first is that the songs, which do combine the elements of metal and folk, have a good structure. Menetekel uses the non amplified instruments (aka: the woodwinds, acoustic guitar, mouth harp and accordion) as important parts of the songs as opposed to simple accents. This is what blackened folk is supposed to sound like. Menetekel also adds some clean cries and spoken word passages which is all folk based. There's also a decent use of samples. By the way whatafuck was that animal sound on "Gottes Acker"? Hell I thought I was having a Rats in the Walls moment there for a second.

The second thing that stands out about this release, and it's a downside, is the poor drum sound. Can you say drums in a can? With that said Totbringaere is a fantastic release especially if you're into quality blackened folk metal.

Rating: 4/5

http://helunco.blogspot.com/

http://gracelessrecordings.storenvy.com/products/19013866-ungfell-totbringre

https://www.facebook.com/Ungfell-1553339294947606/

https://ungfell.bandcamp.com/album/t-tbring-re

HORN - Turm am Hang review

HORN - Turm am Hang

Northern Silence Productions


Nerrath, the one man workaholic behind HORN with a sack of past releases to show for it, is back with this his seventh full length. As usual this is folk inspired blackened something or other and I should be drinking a beer while listening to it. Seriously HORN is sorta like Finland's KORPIKLAANI in that the music is upbeat folk metal albeit with the obvious Germanic flare. I might wanna play this during Oktoberfest just for kicks.




For a one man act Nerrath is a talented musician, songwriter and ah, vocalist? I'll leave that latter one alone. I mean he sings in gruff German. As for the rest of it yeah usually within this genre it takes a full band to pull off what this one guy does for fun. This is melodic and rousing for the most part. There's a couple traditional metal headbanging moments as well as folk inspired meloncholy towards the end of the release. The last cut Nerrath even breaks into clean singing. I thought I was listening to FOLKEARTH for a second. All in all another decent release from Nerrath.

Rating: 4.5

http://northern-silence.de/

https://www.facebook.com/HornOfficial

https://hornlichterlischt.bandcamp.com/album/turm-am-hang