There are times when a press release hits the nail firmly on the head, and the following comment from Inverse Records is just that: “Gathering sounds from folk metal to death metal sung in Finnish and built together into the heavy grasp that in it’s originality is pure northern melancholy. ” This was the third album from the band, released at the end of 2011, and presumably the final release to boot as I have hard that hey broke up last year. Now, that’s a real shame as this has a large number of positives, in a depressing northern folk metal sort of way. When a band has the nerve to use a piano accordion and to go straight from that into heavy riffs then I have to take my hat off to them as it’s not the sort of approach that I ever thought would happen when I started listening to metal when the dinosaurs ruled the earth (at least according to my kids).
But what makes this album really work for me is the sheer diversity that is taking place, combined with a hard approach that is far more melodic than one may first realise. This is metal first and foremost, but the folk element doesn’t sound as if it has been bolted on but rather that it is a core part of the sound that has developed organically and has a very earthy texture to it.
This is music which ensures that the genre needs to be taken seriously, that it is much more than gimmicks and is in fact something that has a depth and diversity that adds to the view of metal as a whole. It is something that I have enjoyed playing a great deal, and is one of the finest examples of this style of metal that I have come across. Well worth discovering for yourself.
www.inverse.fi
