Coming off a strong stretch of albums like Under the Red Cloud and Queen of Time, I had really high hopes that Halo would ascend to the level of masterpiece Amorphis was putting out in the mid 90s. That was an unrealistic expectation, of course, and in fact this record is a step back even from its predecessors, but that's not to dump on it too hard, because Halo has all the hallmarks you've come to expect from the Finns, and it's nothing less than pleasant to experience, with some heavier material spun in there to create a good balance. In fact, this album has most of the components of an album like Elegy, which I still worship to this day. The mix of cleans and growls, the organs, the combination of prog, folk, and death metal, it's all intact, but for all the effort and professionalism, a lot of these tunes are in one ear and straight out the other.
Don't mistake me, if you want that sensation of sailing through the lakes and rivers, hair blown back as you hallucinate on Finnish myth and history, Halo, like most of the Tomi Joutsen era albums, will warm your ears. Both of his vocal styles are as strong as ever, and the guy's got a powerful projection to his timbre which fits wonderfully over the uplifting, epic nature of the music. But once you dissect the bits of this record, a lot of the chugging low end guitars are dull, the melodies with all their hippie effects seem redundant with others the band has been producing since Elegy and Tuonela, and the chorus hooks just don't have much to stand out to you, although they are always competent and easy on the soul. A lot of the proggier pieces like "The Moon" seem bog standard in tempo and structure, and even the more soothing passages like the intro to "Windmane" just seem to drift on by as mere setups for other, harder rhythms that don't deliver something I'm going to think of in 5 years (or months).
Actually, I couldn't remember a single track on this before I went back to visit it...maybe "Seven Roads Come Together" or "When the Gods Came" left a slight impression, but individual riffs or vocal lines escaped me until I was spinning the disc again, and I do feel like the middle and late tracks are more potent. The production has a great depth to it, but the songs really don't beyond the band bringing together those clean and heavier guitars, synths, etc. I like this one more than a Circle or Far from the Sun, the two Amorphis albums I never revisit, so this comes off like a stronger alternative, but even after giving it several more listens to compose my thoughts, it falls firmly into that 'decent' or 'alright' territory, there is nothing incendiary or distinct when mixed and matched against many of their past works. It's fully safe, there are no surprises to be had, no risks whatsoever waiting in its wings. Likeable enough to spend a little time with, but I wouldn't put a ring on its finger.
Verdict: Win [7/10]
https://amorphis.net/
Showing posts with label folk metal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label folk metal. Show all posts
Monday, November 6, 2023
Amorphis - Halo (2022)
Saturday, March 28, 2020
Borknagar - The Archaic Course (1998)
Obviously, I would disagree with any such assessment, because if it's not already painfully clear, this is my favorite Borknagar album. Not by a wide margin, mind you, but this was simply one of those important records that came along in the decade of grunge, nu metal and diminishing returns for a number of subgenres and blew my mind. This is one of those of those 90s albums that expanded my own expectations of what 'metal' music could be, what it could accomplish, and even though they've continued for decades to create beautiful iterations of this style with albums like Empiricism, Winter Thrice and True North, this remains the point where the floodgates opened and a band that had already deluged and impressed me with its earlier works simply drowned me in admiration. That's not to say it doesn't have a few flaws, some rough edges that would be hewn down the road, but I found it positively magnificent back in my 20s and feel no differently in middle age. This thing is a storm of mood and majesty across eight tracks and 38 minutes, and features a number of my fave tracks across the Norwegians' entire history to date.
Now the style here doesn't exactly distance itself far from The Olden Domain, but there was a cleaner and more cosmic feel to how the material was presented and produced. Vibrant if melancholic chord patterns continued to pull from the traditional folk influences just as much as Bathory's Blood Fire Death, and there was a lot more of a direct showcase on the guitars themselves, with percussion often segueing out for some glimmering acoustics or even the winding electric riffs. Kai K. Lie was still performing bass at this point and offers up a cool, subtle, almost psychedelic selection of grooves that lock right together with Brun's poignant riffing. In his final Borknagar performance before a tragic overdose in 1999, Grim lays out a dense level of thunder on the low end of his kit, which only helps to elevate the vocals and guitars out into the firmament, and his fills are great at adding more depth to the constant, swaggering shifts in rhythm. Ivar of Enslaved was still here helping to arrange some of the songs, as well as joining Vortex on the synthesizers, which range from ominous choirs to more slicing, proggy pads that cut through the backdrop of the rhythm instruments' atmosphere. Just because it's a little more direct doesn't make this any less complex than its predecessor, in fact as heavily arranged as their later material would be during the Vintersorg years and before, there was often every bit as much going on throughout this one.
Of course the real star for me is Simen's voice, which even with its lesser level of polish here is still one of the most distinct entities on the whole Norse scene, which contains a whole lot of bands I like that have made constant evolutions beyond their traditional roots. There is obviously a parallel to Garm, but Vortex was simply capable of presenting a wider range, like a yodeler who suddenly got all grim and serious. The snarls here are solid as well, but there was no question after hearing this that the soaring clean vocals were going to remain a central feature going forward. While he occasionally does seem to go off pitch ever so slightly, the way the voice interacts with the busy riffing was just something so new to me back when I first heard this. And having had the good fortune to see them tour on this album with Emperor, the Kings of Terror package, I can attest that it sounded even better in that setting than it did on this recording. But it is utterly mighty either way, especially in tracks like "Ad Nocturm" or "Black Token" where he alternates it with some of the more chaotic and wicked black metal rasping for a duality that doesn't sound the slightest bit forced or cheesy.
It would be hard to choose favorites here, but in addition to those I just mentioned, I'll give a nod to the beautiful, steady "Winter Millennium", "Universal" and the heavily fjord-flowing "Oceans Rise" which was a track that definitely caught on with a lot of folks, even if the album as a whole didn't. But there's not a bad track among these, not one point that I ever feel like skipping a single measure, not even for the arguably anticlimactic synth, voice and storm-sampled outro "Fields of Long Gone Presence", which has this warmth to it among the crackling thunder and shining keys which is worth its very short journey. It's totally awesome, even for the few instances where the vocals or melodies might not be perfectly executed in isolation from the rest of the mix; the flaws, and they're minor at most, only end up endearing me to the whole thing even more (and I'd say the same of Garm's stuff on the first two albums). Ultimately, with its ponderous, nature-tinted lyrics and the rich musical language the band had been developing for itself coming fully into fruition, The Archaic Course is probably one of the most underrated albums I own in my entire collection. I've still got my beat up old cardboard promo slip CD for this one, from my early zine years in the 90s, and it's well past time I upgraded for one with a booklet.
Verdict: Epic Win [9.5/10] (slide into forever)
http://borknagar.com/
Sunday, March 22, 2020
Borknagar - Quintessence (2000)
After having such a prominent role on the album before it, ICS Vortex seems to be subdued here, at least his cleaner vocal style. It exists throughout the album, but is too often paired up with the rasp vocals which often end up sounding pretty silly. In fact, there are a lot of synth parts or melodies here that give the impression of a carnival or haunted house, not enough that for it to avoid the fjords of the band's foundation, but I occasionally feel like I'm listening to a more intense, hectic Arcturus and not so much Borknagar. There are still some great, charging Viking pieces here like "Ruins of the Future", which has some amazing melodies, especially the interchange between the synths and guitars. They also throw this filter on the snarls which is horrifying if over the top. "Colossus" is another track I enjoyed, one of the closest callbacks to the previous records, with a nice clean vocal presence and some swinging, swaggering mid-pace riffs. "Invincible" sounds like some badass carousel black metal, and the close "Revolt" has a nice contrast between its own circus-like synths simmering off in the background between the charge of the beat and the rasping.
Otherwise, I think there are a few misfire tracks with some interesting tectonic rhythmic structures that simply don't manifest riffs of high enough quality for them to stand out. The instrumental ditties are a mixed bag, with the prog-goth organ & drum driven "Inner Landscape" sounding like it belongs on La Masquerade Infernale, and "Embers" giving off a "Planet Caravan" like vibe as it leads into the last track. The mix on the album is pretty solid, but I think perhaps some places there are certain instruments or vocals that should have been emphasized or dialed back. This was Lars Nedland's first album with the band, and I think they also overused his keys, just a fraction. I'm a HUGE fan of his, don't mistake me, in both this band and his mainstay Solefald; there are plenty of moments where he shines even here, but the album does come off a bit overcrowded or messy in certain spots. Ultimately, Quintessence is my least favorite of Borknagar's studio efforts apart from the acoustic Origin, but it's still pretty good. There's an EP worth of fantastic material here, and nothing else is necessarily bad, it just doesn't resonate with me as much as the first three albums or many that have arrived later on.
Verdict: Win [7.75/10] (swept toward a new domain)
http://borknagar.com/
Thursday, March 19, 2020
Borknagar - True North (2019)
The Vintersorg years are over. Hedlund had an amicable parting with the band and bounced back over to his eponymous mainstay to produce a (worthy) sequel to his debut Till fjälls decades before, and his absence can certainly be felt here. Not through a dive in quality, but just in how True North does not attempt to come across as busy as some of its predecessors. You don't have the massive vocal arrangements they all pulled off together on the albums running up to this...still some duets, but in general the vocal patterns are more straightforward. Fortunately, they're also AMAZING, with ICS Vortex giving one of the best performances of his entire career, both his epic cleans and his harshes. There was also some new blood in the fold here, with drummer Bjørn Dugstad Rønnow, the third in three albums, and guitarist Jostein Thomassen, aka Pendragon, who had played with Rønnow before, as well as a little late 90s/early 00s black metal outfit you might have encountered called Source of Tide. Both of them fit into Borknagar so well that you'd have thought they were already playing with them for a good decade or so already, and in fact the drumming is quite potent, which gives a lot of life to such a dynamic effort which to my ears sounds like the most modern thing they've ever done from a pure production standpoint.
Now, I'm not going to lie, True North is a bit heavily front-loaded, but damn are these first 4-5 cuts epics that match almost anything the band had produced before. "Thunderous" is quite an accurate description of itself, a powerhouse that isn't without its own acoustic, emotional self-balancing sequences that include some very tasty guest violins. "Up North" might be the most presentable use yet of Vortex's yodeling, melodic cleans, so damn catchy that one weekend when my wife and I were driving the kids through the White Mountains to Santa's Village in New Hampshire, I had all of them trying to yodel along to that part. And they're a bunch of squares! To them, Loki is just a Marvel action figure they have lying in a toy bin with so many others. "The Fire That Burns" is another mighty tune, a more mid-paced joint that makes you feel like you're watching your landscape transform into the Nine Worlds in slow motion, vocally impressive with some great little proggy bits and acoustics. "Wild Father's Hearts" stands out for being a better Borknagar ballad than almost anything you'll find on Origin, some powerful choruses, and when the electric guitars arrive they are brilliant.
After that point, the album shifts down to just regular old 'greatness' and some of the brilliance might subside, if not the magnificence. Tracks like "Into the White" and "Tidal" have some wonderful moments, but they also have a few riffs in there that don't quite stick the landing as well as others, or might feel a little redundant with other Borknagar tracks here or in the past; for instance I heard some callbacks to The Olden Domain in the latter. Nothing wrong with that, but that initial rush in which I couldn't believe what I was hearing faded away and I was left with just a pleasant listen to material which is still far better than most anything else I'd listen to in any genre in 2019. So, not much of a downer and not only a few points get shaved as a result. Altogether, True North just exemplifies the resilience and continual growth of the group, even with these lineup changes they pull together one of their strongest albums, and in fact after listening to this one for the last six months and change I'm happy to say it's my second favorite in their whole catalog, just marginally nudging out its bad ass predecessor.
Verdict: Epic Win [9.25/10] (where the air is clear)
http://borknagar.com/
Friday, March 13, 2020
Borknagar - Winter Thrice (2016)
But for all that, they also manage to squeeze in 'Fiery G.', Kristoffer 'Garm' Rygg back into the fold with the amazing title track and "Terminus", later on in the playlist. For a band that already had so much going on, so many weapons to skewer you with, this is just added detail that makes them so consistently engaging. You could very easily fuck up something like this with too many cooks in the kitchen and make the album sound like a crowded mess, but Brun is such a great writer that the album never suffers from any sort of excess, the structure of every moment is divine. I've already mentioned the title track which was instantly catapulted into my top handful of Borknagar tracks, not only for the trio of singers but also because of those Viking-like swaggering riffs colliding into the proggier parts with the amazingly memorable clean vocals. I hear this song every time I dream, from the melodies to the grounded brickwork laid out by Baard Kolstad, on loan from Leprous, who does a killer job here taking over for David Kincade, even if just for this one studio effort. Other highlights include "Cold Runs the River" with its desperate, surging rhythm and swells of heavenly orchestration, or "The Rhyme of the Mountain", one of their best career openers, or the nerding out of the proggy "Panorama", or the mellow but no-less-potent "Noctilucent".
I wouldn't say the album is entirely perfect, for all the masterful tunes here there are certainly a few moments where the music doesn't catch the ear quite so spiritually. Granted, this is a matter of measures or riffs, never whole tunes, and there is no sub-par material whatsoever that I feel like skipping, but I didn't think the album was incessantly genius, mostly just Urd-level with a few tracks going above and beyond anything on that one. Production is very polished and even, whether they're storming off into a blast beat with Vintersorg's rasp leading the way, an acoustic segue, or a more choppy progressive bit, and the lyrics are some of their finest, conjuring up these cyclopean and sweeping images of nature and philosophical whimsy. I can recall listening the fuck out of this thing when it first showed up early in 2016, and then for several late Autumns since then it provided me with an awesome soundtrack to some of my landscaping, whether it was bagging leaves or clearing snow. Just one of that albums that sounds even better outside than it does when you're experience it in a closed off environment. Expansive, mesmerizing and proof there was still a LOT of life left in this almost infallible Norwegian act. Tied with The Olden Domain for my third favorite Borknagar.
Verdict: Epic Win [9.25/10] (raving forces of the inevitable)
http://borknagar.com/
Tuesday, March 10, 2020
Borknagar - Urd (2012)
In fact, Urd is almost like a warm up to the greatness that would follow it in 2016, but in of itself it is quite an excellent album that felt considerably fresher than Universal or Epic before it. While the baseline mash of progressive, folk and Viking black metal aesthetics remained fully intact, there were a number of riffs and arrangements throughout the entire record that felt unique to me. The album doesn't seem to lean as much on the organs or synthesizers as prior outings; although they're still woven in rather well, this record heavily favors the guitars and vocals, and arguably might be the most black metal infused offering the band had released since Quintessence. Not to the exclusion of the other styles, for there are flowing, orchestrated acoustics on the calming of "The Plains of Memories", or majestic melodic folk metal on "Frostrite", it's still a heavily dynamic, diverse effort. But it does feel like you're getting a lot more floods of tremolo picked guitars, David Kinkade laying out a ton of meticulous blast beats, and the way it opens with "Epochalypse" just goes for the throat immediately with some intensity while showcasing this new multi-vocal attack and some a few really sweet riffing progressions.
Whole album is a beast, in particular the vocals, which are fairly even distributed between Vortex' cutting, higher pitch which had matured by this point over his earlier years with the band, the rasps and mid-range cleans of Vintersorg which had also improved, and Nedland's additional lines. Once in awhile they'll have this choir-like track just hovering off in the mix which sounds amazing to the point where I wish it was used even more...there is always something happening here and I'd have to brand it as one of the finer vocal albums over their whole career, trumped only by its own followup. The mix of the album is clear, but textured and powerful, like a lot of their material I feel like they just have so much more weaponry than other bands in their field, and none of it drags behind any of the other instrumentation. Combined with the great lyrics, the packaging, and the overall vision this is one of the band's top albums, although really, there are so many to choose from...my opinion of this one has even INCREASED over the last eight years since I picked it up, but it's clearly a shower just as much as a grower, more evidence that this is just one of the best bands around.
Verdict: Win [8.75/10] (Where the rivers recoil and return)
http://borknagar.com/
Sunday, March 8, 2020
Borknagar - Universal (2010)
Universal does suffer somewhat from redundancy, for as much work as they obviously put into their material, a number of the tracks present here flow into one another and previously released tunes to the point that they can be a little difficult to pick apart. There's still a strong backbone of melodic black metal, but constantly being complemented with acoustic segues, Hammond organs, synths and pianos so that there's rarely a moment of raw riff that isn't accompanied. The 'Viking' sound here is quite prevalent through Brun's chord constructions and that interplay of electrics and acoustics that feels like you're drifting along the winds and waters of some far North idyll, interwoven with the substantial vocal arrangements of Vintersorg and Lars Nedland, between raving rasps and some slick male choirs which help elevate it that much more above the mundane. The proggy keyboards are legion, and Borknagar had long since become one of the bands outside Finland's Amorphis to best incorporate them without coming off as overly atmospheric hacks.
Sprinkle on some bluesy, Pink Floyd-style lead guitars and you've got yourself another rich, detailed album you can adventure through numerous times with plenty of new patterns forming. The new drummer at the time, American David Kinkade added quite a lot to the aural canvas with his beats that effortlessly bounced between intensity and calmer rock grooves and fills, and there were a few moments where Tyr's bass playing also got pretty perky. For me this album really picks up with the trilogy of tracks "For a Thousand Years to Come", "Abrasion Tide" and "Fleshflower" which are the most exciting and interesting of the lot, some excellent vocal lines, jarring proggy guitars and boiling organs and other synthesizer lines frenzying out to kick some life into the occasionally bland tunes that came before them. And for a wonderful surprise you get a guest spot from none other than former (and future) vocalist I.C.S. Vortex on "My Domain" which is a great way to close this out and perhaps offer a little foreshadowing.
The digipak version I own comes with a bonus "Making of" DVD which is pretty typical of such things, and not all that interesting to where it offers me much more value. You get a good glimpse of their process and their wintry environments where the album is being recorded, but I'd have loved more of an intimate thing where someone could pick their brains a little more, maybe see them out about town in the midst of the hole thing. Unless you want to sit there watching guys record their instruments individually for songs that you know far better and like better on the whole, it's kind of a dud and not even shot particularly well, but then again it's not like they HAD to include it, they wanted to kick a little something extra to the audience and so be it. Not a mar upon an album that, while far from their best, still has plenty to recommend about it and for me trumps both Origin and Epic before it.
Verdict: Win [8.25/10]
http://borknagar.com/
Thursday, March 5, 2020
Borknagar - For the Elements 1996-2006 (2008)
We all know how I feel about these shenanigans, and I can't promise my crusade ends here, but there are two slight things working in this particular compilation's favor. For one, they've remastered the material so it sounds a little more balanced from the slightly rougher years of the s/t or The Olden Domain and the more pristine, glistening production found on records like Epic or Origin. This was also curated by Marco Barbieri, one of the early driving forces at Century Media, and a guy I happen to admire a lot. In fact, his writings in Ill Literature were some of my own inspiration to deciding to review the metal music that I so long admired. So if someone is being handed a catalog of tunes to pick through, I sort of trust that he'd put their present some of their best. And he does well enough, it's not as if the Norwegians had any bad material to begin with, and thanks to its chronological presentation, the acoustic tracks from Origin are wedged at the back of the order, and even there they included that album's best track "White". 15 tracks overall, with 2-3 taken from each of the albums put out by that point under the Century Media banner. The exception is the s/t, of which only the excellent track "Dauden" is present...a misfire, I probably would have dropped one of the Empiricism tunes and added "Grimskalle trell" or "Krigsttev".
Of course, nitpicking details like track inclusion is a complete waste of time, just like this release is. Borknagar is an exceptional band that should be experienced through its full-length albums, and even though a few tunes here might be glossed up or polished, and decently I might add, it's just so critical to explore the context of all the band was creating at each of these incremental stepping stones in its career. There is no bonus material of note and it doesn't even look all that great in presentation. Not to mention, some of those earlier records have full remasters available out there through various labels, so one of the benefits this might have had in 2008 was quickly erased by subsequent products that are much more deserving of your hard earn coin (or even your trust funds if you're so fortunate). If you're brand new to the band, just head immediately towards True North, or Winter Thrice, or honestly any other studio album other than Origin and spin them front to back. You won't be disappointed. Save this change for a coffee and sandwich.
Verdict: Epic Fail [1/10]
http://borknagar.com/
Wednesday, March 4, 2020
Borknagar - Origin (2006)
To their credit, Borknagar did not just phone in a predictable 'unplugged' album of previous released material, at least not for the most part. "Oceans Rise" is a new version of the track off of The Archaic Course, and not terribly welcome on my part, not just because its acoustic, but because I just don't enjoy Vintersorg's voice as much as Vortex's snarls or cleans on the original. To that effect, I have never really been able to get much into Origin. I can appreciate the subtle nature of this transition, and the wonderful production that delivers each light beat and shining string with such clarity. The vocals and backing vocals are mixed very well, balanced between delicate verses and powerful choruses that emphasize Hedlund's strengths. Most of the original compositions for this are quite nice, and probably would serve well to give the band a breather at a live performance, but I only find a few of the riffs memorable in this acoustic context, and I sense that the same things delivered with electric guitars and heavier drumming would probably sound stronger.
"White" is an exception, because I liked the creeping progressive nature of its structure and it has one of my favorite vocal performances from Vintersorg ever in this band, and "The Human Nature" is another excellent example of where it all works due to the vocal arrangements. It's also not just some bare-boned exhibition of acoustic guitars and drums, there are also violins, flutes, cellos, and fretless bass all over the place to really flesh out this sound. In fact, I think for fans of pure folk music, this one might have some staying power. If you just like sitting by the bay, or around the campfire, as the birds dart about, the clouds ramble on through their adventures, nursing wine or mead, just desiring the simplicity and warmth that this medium of music can provide, with the band's introspective form of lyrics that examine the self's place in the natural world, this is certainly successful. This if Viking Hippy 101, but in terms of memorable construction it just doesn't always achieve what the band has long been able to while plugged in. To some degree it's a bit of a sedative, I feel like falling asleep several times through the experience, not necessarily a bad thing but not what I'm after. And the two instrumental tracks here are by far the most dull, thankfully brief.
Granted, this is a sort of one-off 'experiment' and might not be considered a true Borknagar album, but it's clear that some effort went into this with a lot of new songs, so I can't exactly isolate it as some non-canon stepchild. Thus, it's my single least favorite in their actual studio discography, but that's not to say it isn't decent for what it is and that some fraction of the band's audience is bound to fall in love with it. I just find too much of it to be samey and lack the dynamics of their metal work.
Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10]
http://borknagar.com/
Tuesday, March 3, 2020
Borknagar - Epic (2004)
Part of that was probably that it blends in rather well with Empiricism. The production on Epic is more prominent, as its title might imply, and the black metal vocals slightly more visceral, but the arsenal is much the same, proggy-infused melodic black metal that shifts between thundering blast sequences, frolicking mid-paced passages where the vocals shine, and folksy segues. Hedlund does continue to warm up and improve his vocal style here through multi-tracking, and delivering some more solid lines in the upper range of his comfort zone. As much as I wasn't feeling some of his singing on older albums of his career, it's absolutely certain that he brought his A-game with this new Borknagar venture, it remains some of his best work and helped spur continual growth through his other projects, particular his eponymous solo records which are generally quite good. Some of the rasping stuff can get a little bold or silly sounding in spots, but his cleaner vocal arrangements sound really good on tracks like "Traveller", or even where he's largely using them as backups for the snarls in "Resonance", etc. I think the band had also gotten a little better at making the symphonic sweeps sound more organic and natural within the tunes.
The group had whittled down to a four-piece here, with everyone handling multiple duties and really offering a showcase reel of their talents. I don't know that Asgeir Mickelson is as good a bass player as he is a drummer, and thus that instrument isn't quite as effective as it was on prior Borknagar albums, but he's got his moments, and even offers a little lead guitar. Lars Nedland continues to refine the progressive and orchestral aspects of the group's sound that were originally introduced by Ivar of Enslaved on the first few albums, and the acoustic pianos and guitars all over the album sound great. There's definitely a lot of shared songwriting duties which might make the album feel a little more chopped up than its predecessor, but everything still flows quite well together, and passionate tracks like "Cyclus" or "Sealed Chamber of Electricity" really floored me like they never had before. I think sometimes a group of this quality and consistency has a tendency to overwhelm me with what it offers, so I'm grateful that the style and production on this album holds up so well, that I can listen back on it over decades and continually discover what I'd been missing. It's still one of my least favorite efforts in their discography, but when the lower tier is still this good, who's complaining?
Verdict: Win [8/10]
http://borknagar.com/
Monday, March 2, 2020
Borknagar - Empiricism (2001)
In fact, this is an album that not only continues to cultivate the ideas of Brun and company from the 90s, but you could also see it as an evolution on the Vintersorg solo path, a followup to the previous year's Cosmic Genesis just as much as it honors Quintessence or The Olden Domain. His own folk black metal style would be heavily permeated with progressive sounds and influences on efforts like Visions from the Spiral Generator and The Focusing Blur, and while Empiricsm is a little heavier, flowery and dramatic than those, they certainly share some roots. This album fosters some of the faster moments of Quintessence, but integrates a lot more dynamic range, with a wide array of instrumentation thanks to the lush synthesizers, Hammond organs, six-string or fretless bass lines, and tasteful acoustics. Few of these things are new to Borknagar, sure, but the way they strike a balance across these 10 tracks and 50 minutes is certainly a slightly different vibe than what I got on the records preceding it. With a crisp production, intricate musicianship, lots happening, never a second that betrays their origins, it's just another feather in the cap of one of Norway's finest, maybe not the plume I'd admire the most upon first glance, but a robust and well-crafted experience that holds up today like so many of their other works.
In fact, it's just another album they've written that I continue to grow fonder every time I revisit it. Extremely consistent across it's entire duration, I wouldn't say they take many risks, but it features another of their better instrumentals, or 'mostly'-instrumentals, "Matter and Motion", with its superb, brooding piano lines that only escalate once the percussion and electric guitar chords arrive. There are some swaggering, potent mid-paced cuts like "The Stellar Dome" in which Vintersorg really has to flex himself over numerous vocal tracks that show some of his better work at that mid-to-slightly-higher range that he finds himself so comfortable in. And then there are plenty of surging pieces like "The Genuine Pulse" or "Four Element Synchronicity" which should sate those that appreciated the fiercer material on the s/t or Quintessence, and even these themselves feature a microcosmos of textures and tempos. The lyrics are very tight, parades of eloquent grammar residing in philosophical and natural subjects; perhaps a bridge too far on the dorky side if you're expecting more Viking or Satanic-themes with your black metal, but for those of us who like to sniff our own fumes as we wax poetic pretentious on the underlying truths of the universe, they are pretty intoxicating.
Verdict: Win [8.5/10]
http://borknagar.com/
Friday, February 28, 2020
Borknagar - The Olden Domain (1997)
The sophomore is mildly more accessible than the debut thanks to an increased level of Nordic swagger and memorable, folk-flavored riffing patterns that dominated nearly ever track, although it's not a massive stylistic departure from where they had been prior. This still weaves together some of that mid-paced Blood Fire Death thunder with more intricate guitar progressions and a dynamic duality to Garm's vocals as he fairly evenly dispenses his heinous black metal rasping and the more broad, chanted, cleans which help establish the yodel-like presence of his successor. Rygg would keep his range lower-to-mid as opposed to Vortex' higher pitch, but there are clearly similarities in how they'd both express that raw, half-formed style which not a lot of other bands were doing much at the time. Even the keyboardist Ivar's mainstay Enslaved were leaning heavily on the snarls at this point, but in the future many groups of this scene (Solefald, Ihsahn, to name a few) would adopt the mix of 'beauty and the beast' vocal, only as opposed to the Gothic/death metal of the era, the beauties here bore wool sweaters beneath their leather and denim jackets, and lots more facial hair. There are a few points where Rygg seemingly goes a little off tune, and it can provide a very minor distraction, but overall there's just so much personality and atavistic atmosphere that it was love at first listen.
There's also a slightly more progressive/folk tendency being fostered beyond the obvious traces we had with the s/t, this can be heard heavily in the instrumental "Om hundrede aar et alting glemt" which begins as this beautiful piano piece with scintillating effects and striking chords that inevitably transform into more obvious electronics, which might have a lot to do with Ivar's influences but end up crafting potentially the band's most memorable instrumental. The whole first half of this album is stacked with brilliant tracks, winding and wintry and effectively catapulting the listener into the snowy dreamscapes of old that must have shaped the musicians' imaginations. Whether the band is throttling the double bass and black metal snarls in the verses of "The Eye of Oden" or opening each of the tracks to its more expressive, expansive, somber melody and instrumentation, the first 20 or so minutes of material here stands alongside anything else they've ever recorded, it's just that brilliant in its conception and execution. Detailed enough that it has provided me countless listens with a new note or beat to experience each time, but also fairly accessible as far as the more limited Viking metal pool that existed in the 90s before being appropriated by a lot of bands that would hone in only on its more superficial aspects.
"To Mount and Rove", despite having an awesome title, is where the album dips a little in quality, with the almost Dani Filth-like whispery vocals in the verse, and a structure that just doesn't inspire as much as those before it. It rights itself with the more aggressive "Grimland Domain" and stays the course there, and I especially love "The Dawn of the End" with its weird filtered vocals. But I wouldn't present The Olden Domain as 100% flawless; a trim down from its 44 minute playlength to around 40 minutes would have really tightened it up. That said, this is still an excellent effort after over 20 years, holding up as innovative and fresh today as when I heard it in my 20-somethings, and probably in my top 3-4 of Borknagar's outings overall. Considering the level of relative quality they've been able to maintain, even through the notable lineup changes, that's saying something. And I can understand how some purists wanting every album to sound like De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, Transylvanian Hunger and In the Nightside Eclipse might find this one a little tacky, but everyone gets to be wrong sometimes. This is for me a dreamy, stream-gazing sort of record where each little riff is a rivulet that runs floating leaves off on another course as the snow overtakes the autumn canvas. Not a deep freeze, but a late Fall, early Winter work of majesty.
Verdict: Epic Win [9.25/10] (With a shadow vague yet deep)
http://borknagar.com/
Saturday, November 2, 2019
Numen - Iluntasuna besarkatu nuen betiko (2019)
Oh, it's there a little in the chord choices and clamor of their song structures, or in little pieces like the instrumentation that closes out "Itzaletan solasean", but for the most part this is just a suffocation and often dizzying black metal experience. A blasting tumult that weighs heavily on its ability to beat your face in with its hyperactive aggression and the literal floods of chords that it creates. Now, these might take on a more flavorful, Romantic sort of atmosphere in of themselves, as in the depths of "Iraganeko errautsak", but for the most part these motherfuckers play fast, they play hard and you are not liable to forget that as you dig your way through the 47 minutes of material. There are some breaks where the band hits a slower or mid-tempo and simplifies the chord structures, and once the dust of the album clears they offer you an acoustic outro with narrator-like Basque vocals, but this is the sort of momentum and force targeted towards lovers of traditional, fast-driven Scandinavian or Scandinavian-influenced European fare like Marduk, Naer Mataron, 1349 and their ilk, only Numen have enough distinction through the cultural influence and chord choices that they can whip up a frenzy of their own that doesn't sound like a crass impersonation.
The production here is very straightforward, with the drums and guitars surging, bass filling in whatever gaps you might hear on the lower end. The vocals are a pretty standard rasp for the most part, and not a terribly interesting one, although to be fair they are being outclassed by those deluges of chords and tremolo picked black metal guitar passages which always shine brighter. I certainly thought that, while the tempo shifting here and dynamics are always clear, some of the tunes suffered a little encumbrance from trying to quash too much rhythmic change into a space that couldn't support it all, but on the whole you can tell these guys have been around for awhile and they handle the attack with sincerity and professionalism. Iluntasuna besarkatu nuen betiko is a solid effort with no question, and I found myself admiring the dedication and level of detail in the riff patterns. The production and the beautiful artwork are well suited to the sound, but I did feel that the material this time around wasn't the most memorable. Good riffs in the moment, but few moments resonating in my head long after the music ended.
Verdict: Win [7/10]
https://numenblackmetal.bandcamp.com/
Wednesday, May 29, 2019
Stormheit - Chronicon Finlandiae (2011)
Chronicon Finlandiae, the fourth record from Stormheit, may have a list of shortcomings attributed to it, but I can say that this isn't your average, shallow sort of folk metal effort. No, this is more like what would have happened had later era Bathory emerged from Finland instead of Sweden. This is laid back, airy, spacious mountainside rock which drifts at you with countless, tinny melodic guitar lines and some occasionally surges into a fraction more intensity with the drums picking up into a mid-paced beat. The drums sound as good as they need to, with some fills and grooves to help mediate the languid pacing of most of the tunes, and the bass lines, while nothing special, at least help to plug up some of the gaps left by the lack of a sturdy or voluminous rhythm guitar section in a lot of spots on the album. Acoustic guitars are spaced out across the album to give it more of a rustic charm, and keys are used liberally when further atmospheric escalation is required. Where they do break out some heavier riffs, like the picking progressions in the beginning of "Ukon Malja", they are actually pretty decent sounding, and I wished for a little more than this throughout.
On to the vocals...they are often a clear weakness here, as they possess a lot of those inherent flaws that you might remember Quorthon had, or some of Vintersorg's older solo stuff, only here it's another language and a different pitch. Once you accustom yourself to the more chanted phrasings, or the higher pitched, soaring inflections, or even the crowd shouted parts, they become quite pleasing, but it's when that layer of angst or harsher intonation is applied that they can become a little awkward, especially in the first track. The style should work on this really well, and in places it does, but I feel you have to go ever deeper into the record for them to really hit a confident stride. Almost all of the tracks are also quite substantial, from about 7-11 minutes in length, and while they aren't terribly boring in structure, a total playtime of 77 minute seems overwrought when the spectrum of actual ideas here might span about 50 minutes of worthwhile material. Don't get me wrong, the material doesn't suddenly take a nosedive in quality, it's just that you feel you've gotten it after about half the album and there aren't many surprised waiting deeper on.
I will say that Chronicon is on the verge of being a pretty solid album, turning out a lot better than I suspected after the first track. Tightening the tracks and improving the vocals would have gone a long way towards making a better impression, but if you're a real big pagan for Bathory albums like Twilight of the Gods, Hammerheart, Blood on Ice and the Northland two-parter, and want to hear a slightly different approach to that from across the Tornio River, this might be worth a listen.
Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10]
Friday, May 25, 2018
Amorphis - Queen of Time (2018)
But Queen of Time offers even more than that, with lush passages of orchestration, grand pianos, church organs, dual-sex vocal choirs, saxophone, whistles, and male strippers. Perhaps these are not all entirely novel ideas for Amorphis, certainly not among the symphonic, folk or Gothic metal throngs at large; but there are clearly moments littered throughout this album when I feel like I've entered some slightly new territory, whether it's just the sound design and production values or the fact that they're testing out some new hooks here, or drugs there, or arrangements everywhere. In truth, this is possibly the most accessible of the band's albums...a truth that could likely turn out some longtime subscribers and turn in a broader audience, but that's not to say the Finns have stepped far outside of their normal comfort zone. No, most of the embellishments here, whether you'd equate them with some other big Euro symphonic Goth metal brand or not, are actually delivered with taste and elegance, molding themselves fluidly into the band's contrasts between emotional chorus swells and the divide between stomping and ethereal verse rhythms and lyrics. So the end result is really only to ADD to that formula they've been refining for the last 20+ years, and it's appreciated.
Every single song on this album is great, from the powered-up Tuonela flexing of "The Bee", through the funereal, chugging, growling drama of "Pyres on the Coast", and on into the bonus tracks, which as usual for Amorphis are just about as good as all the content on the album proper, to the point that they really seem like they're just fucking with us by even calling them 'bonus tracks'. It's hard to even choose favorites...."Golden Edge" and "Heart of the Giant" might get a slight edge, especially when Santeri and Esa trade off those synth and axe leads in the latter. Or that intro to "We Accursed", when it briefly feels like the Kalevala meets the Wild West. The lyrics rule. Tomi Joutsen is at the top of his game throughout, capable of delivering a sincere enough guttural or rasp that you can take it seriously alongside the much airier, brighter music, or those unanimously captivating cleaner lines...these guys have their 'Beauty & the Beast' down so pat that it's almost unthinkable to imagine that there are so many bands out their who make it all sound so goofy. The drums sound fantastic, even at their calmest they thunder off across the album's horizon with determination, and along with so many of the moody if traditional chord progressions, there is just never a moment on Queen of Time in which I feel that I haven't been carried off somewhere. And not dropped, thankfully. Because that would hurt.
Now, it might not attain perfection. It might not resonate with me over the next few decades like a Tales from the Thousand Lakes or an Elegy has. I might not incorporate its singles into my own pole-dancing routine (weekends in the city). But judging by the fact I've already spun this thing ten times this past week, when I've got so many life priorities in the way, or other records to check out, I have no problem hailing this as my favorite Amorphis release since that highly formative, evolutionary era. Color me absorbed.
Verdict: Epic Win [9.25/10] (when moments became eternity)
http://www.amorphis.net/
Tuesday, May 22, 2018
Amorphis - Under the Red Cloud (2015)
While Under the Red Cloud suffers very sparsely from a couple of the same issues, namely a scant handful of blander chugging patterns or a few melodies that at this point felt fully aimless and rehashed, it was easily a more interesting, varied, glorious effort which reversed any delusion of shark jumping. Rhythmically and emotionally this was a more dynamic, memorable effort which balanced off the escapist folk and prog tinged melodic death metal developed through their mid-90s escalation. Even when they're going for those steadier grooves to support the synthesizer melodies, as in the intro to "Bad Blood", it's all constructed with a more textured determination, more ear candy happening on all levels of instrumentation, and a very shift between the grows and Tomi's cleans, which are as distinct and catchy as they've ever been throughout his tenure with the band, spewing a damn fine set of lyrics. Santeri Kallio's keyboards are by far the centerpiece of this entire effort, shining everywhere with pads both atmospheric and retro, but the lead guitars definitely do their vivid best to manifest those amazing melodies from the brilliant Elegy era (my favorite).
In fact, every instrument shines throughout this, from the clean and simple but compelling bass lines to the shimmery acoustics, there is just enough going on that it feels like one of their best attempts at managing all these atmospheres under one awning of atavist lyrics. Moments of relative calm are contrasted against some of the heavier, intense, percussive builds, and the leads feel carefully and tastefully implemented against the roiling keys and vocals. Some of the individual tracks here are among the best they've released in the 21st century, like "Dark Path" and "Tree of Ages", and the two bonuses "Come the Spring" and "Winter's Sleep" were well worthy of inclusion, the former giving me flashbacks to the Tuonela/Am Universum era. In fact, Amorphis doesn't really leave any of its fanbase out in the cold with the exception of those who wrote them off after Karelian Isthmus, or possibly Tales from the Thousand Lakes...you won't find any drudging death metal here with only a faint hint of melody, but rather the inverse...a brick wall of melodies with none of the old riffing to be found anywhere...only Tomi's impassioned growls vaguely, call back to that era, and in the context they are used here, probably not even those. This has long become the norm for the Finns, and it could be a lot worse, because this is glorious stuff with only a few moments which fail to live up to those surrounding them.
Verdict: Win [8.5/10] (and I bared them my heart of hearts)
http://www.amorphis.net/
Thursday, May 18, 2017
Bifröst - Schlachtklänge (2006)
Spoiler: having traveled to the future beyond 2006, and survived, I can assure you that once this group signed to Germany's Einheit Produktionen for their sophomore, they gradually improved to the point that I would call their fourth (and potentially final) record Mana Ewah a solid and entertaining entry into the burgeoning field of European pagan/folk metal, checking off all the right boxes for my ale binges and pretending I am from an Era I am not. For Schlachtklänge ('battle sounds?) that was just not the case, as it suffers from a number of 'rookie' shortcomings that render it ultimately forgettable, if not a complete heap of oxen leavings. Before even listening through the album, you can tell it doesn't look like much, with its muted tree photography, bland logo, but just enough of the right symbology and font to clue you in on what style of music this might be...or at least to point you in the right direction. Really, the middling production and values and appearance hint that this is more or less a demo in album-length, one which sets the ground game from which the band could later sprout some more competent and memorable ideas.
Listen to any record from Turisas and their ilk and you'll hear that they go with the bombastic, sweeping sort of intro which synthesized horns, a clarion call to the goofy warfare that ensues, but strangely the Austrians place a three-minute guitar instrumental, which is surprisingly the best produced piece on the record, but has a kind of bluesy, incidental feel that doesn't quite match up the rest of the material. But then it's off to some mediocre, shuffling, middle placed power chords that are dressed up with folk melodies, all of which would prove passable if the mix were a little more even. The vocal growls feel too muffled, and not even mic'd properly, as if the guy might be blaring the backing tracks and then recording it onto tape. In fact, I wouldn't be terribly surprised if this whole thing was done simultaneously live, it has that sort of boxy, jam-room aesthetic which just doesn't capture for me the frolicking brazenness of what this niche should be all about.
This process is repeated through much of the remainder, with the band struggling to shift up its pacing enough to give the album the variety it deserves. Certainly some of the harmonies, which pitch far over the dingy rhythm guitars, stick more than others, and they show a lot of influence from both the Finnish and Swedish ethnic and melodic death metal scenes, but the production and lack of deviation or risk truly fucks everything over from having a positive impact. To me it sounds like this debut was the product of some well-meaning blokes who heard a couple records by Amorphis and In Flames, but were really into their Finntroll, Ensiferum and Eluveite and felt like bridging these two paradigms into a whole, which they might have done under better studio conditions. Don't get me wrong, there are a half-dozen sailing guitar melodies over the 41 minutes which do take you that glorious inner castle, but the weak, slathering vocal mix and the pedestrian crunch of the rhythm guitar, paired with the submissive drumming and lack of interesting bass-lines, detract severely from its potential.
Again, I don't want to come across too harsh on Bifröst, because they took the right strides to become a better band on their subsequent releases and I'd count myself a fan of at least their last two (in 2013 and 2016). If you're new to the band or just looking for more of that festival folk metal you might enjoy off the European territories, I'd head straight to Mana Ewah and then trace their trajectory backwards for as far as you can stand it. The debut is no diamond in the rough, nor particularly majestic or wintry, desolate or mighty, but a rough template from which the group could throw out the scraps and then run with the strengths. Not totally awful, if you think of it as a demo, but nearly tragic in how some of its melodic components really nailed its vision more than everything supporting them.
Verdict: Fail [4.75/10]
https://www.facebook.com/bifroestaustria/
Thursday, October 6, 2016
Svartby - Swamp, My Neighbour (2015)
So I'm pretty bummed out when I spin the Russians' latest record Swamp, My Neighbour and the first things that blow out of the speakers sound exactly like EVERY other European, charging folk metal band with the driving drums, predictable and majestic melodies, keyboards presenting atmosphere in the most overt, expected ways and a lineage that clearly owes more to Finntroll and Ensiferum than anything hinging on originality. This stuff should sound like demonic fauns dancing nimbly around a glade, or the cobwebbed laughter of an old crone, but it's just the usual glory-hounding cheese with the same Wagnerian swells and indistinct barking, hoarse black metal vocals deliver about as many chills as a warm bath. The riffs are largely just gallivanting chugs and melodies meant to imbue into the keyboards, never haunting or particularly catchy or even interesting. It literally sounds like they just let the synthesizer come up with the melody and then whatever the first palm-mutes they could produce were then set in stone as the bedrock from which the band would achieve its metalness.
I'm not trying to say that Svartby are terrible at this, because they possess the base level of competence to pull it off in time and a couple quirky uses of keys and female vocals that round out the sound to make it listenable. But this really just feels like someone obsessed with Finntroll, yet not willing to go the full distance and include less of the humppa music parts, though some tunes like "Bog Bar" definitely flirt in that territory. I mean, this is no Midnattens widunder, more of a mediocre descendant of Jaktens tid; so in that regard, they're more alike an Equilibrium or Ensiferum writing passable LARP music. The creepy creatures, elixirs and witching ways that the cover artwork hints at are relegated to the lyrics alone (which are decent), and never manifest with any spooky progressions of chords, notes, not even the vocals which are as banal and blunt as their harsh inflection can get. A few later tracks like "Clock Tower" are catchy enough that I wouldn't want to skip through them, but not in the way that the outward aesthetics of the band would hint at, and that's really the biggest disappoint I feel here, another folk metal band that thinks everything needs to be a dance party in Medieval shoes. File 'em away with Trollfest and just stick to the original.
Verdict: Indifference [5.25/10]
http://svartby.bandcamp.com/
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Skyforger - Senprūsija (2015)
Though several of their earlier albums were cut more directly from a black metal cloth, the band had taken a turn for the slightly more accessible with their prior record Kurbads, which was among their best material to date, and sixth album Senprūsija ('Old Prussia') is a loyal followup to that with grimmer artwork and a lot more aural callbacks to older discs like Kauja pie saules (1998) and the Latvian Riflemen (2000), meshing together lattices of inspired, memorable Scandinavian-style black metal riffing with some overt heavy metal and blackened thrash influences. It's not that they constantly innovate the chord progressions, but they take great care to ensure that almost every guitar pattern on the record sticks to the ears, and there is this constant variation in the rhythms which is a mix of lethal intensity and more celebratory pomp we generally equate with the folk metal medium. The guitar tone is rich but cutting, anchored by just the perfect level of buzz on the bass and constantly punctuated with tasteful leads that honor a hard rock tradition without ever becoming exceedingly flashy or frivolous. Curious harmonies and an excellent balance of the drum kit round out the production to what is possibly their best ever, and I found there is nearly no means by which I could predict what exactly was about around most corners in the songwriting, though they never break their character.
Character. That's so important here, and rather than some bunch of misplaced teen angst troubadours diddling their fiddles in the Renaissance Faire restrooms, Skyforger wins on personality over just the novelty of mixing heavy guitars in with traditionally inspired ballads and chords. Peter's vocals continue to serve as a Latvian analog to the great Martin Walkyier (Sabbat, Skyclad), gruff and growled and appropriately ugly alongside the deeper, clean backups; this approach happens to function fluently with the language, and the lack of anything remotely silly going on in the background enforces its efficacy. At the same time, I don't want to make this seem like its overly misanthropic or spiteful sounding music. Aggressive and well balanced, but there's a hearth-like quality, a warmth and pride that resonates through the structure of the songs, and the rawness of the bass and bleeding of some of the tremolo picked guitar lines never completely jump ship on that underground black metal aesthetic which permeated the first few records. This is a good band. The near hour of material they've assembled is extremely consistent, with many of my favorite tracks ("Melnas buras", "Nekas nav aizmirsts") coming even in the latter half when most albums' fire has already died down, just ceaseless successful recipes of traditional heavy/speed, black and thrash licks dowsed in the cauldron of history. Take the ladle and drink.
Verdict: Win [8.25/10]
http://skyforger.lv/lv/
Sunday, June 8, 2014
Equilibrium - Erdentempel (2014)
They've never written their masterpiece, and it's unlikely they will...the closest was probably their sophomore Sagas 2008 which was convincingly charming in all its belligerent bravado, like flipping through a Game of Thrones paperback and scoring it mentally with the most absurdly overt 'what would this battle scene sound like if Hollywood were all metal, all the time' mentality. But it's fun, fun in that same way you might have enjoyed Ensiferum's output or the first Wintersun. Kinetic, technically competent pagan war metal for dorks (and I am not excepting myself, I liked it). Their other albums have more or less gone for the same fruit on the true, albeit less successfully, so with Erdentempel, I at least hoped they could get back on the horse and play at the level they had half a decade ago. Musically, I feel this is the case, since the guitar progressions here are very involved, spry and semi-complex so that your imagination won't hit a dead end the moment you begin to filter through them.
That said, the band remains heavily centered on the cavalry-charge keyboard-wind tones, which are truly the 'lead' instrument in that they will hit you first, and this right here will continue to make it or break it for those who have been on the fence for their past material. Structurally, this is a step past the last LP Rekreatur in the stickiness of individual guitar patterns, with a lot of tempo variation and melody to compensate for a few of the generic chugging patterns the Germans are still occasionally prone to. There are also, sadly a few pretty generic melodies as in "Waldschrein" of the 'triumphant' variety you'd find in midlist film & television scores or Nightwish songs, glorious and grandiose only on the condition that you've had your ears shut for the last 30 years of symphonic orchestration in media. Yet, like the first Turisas album or its own forebear Sagas, I feel that there's still enough 'fun' here, throughout the superficial alehouse bombast, that you can wrench a smile or two. Especially if you think bands like Korkiplaani or Amon Amarth are the be-all-end-all of extreme metal music, then you'll probably think this is genius...in reality, they put a lot of work into it, but it's not even remotely that clever.
I didn't like the vocals, at least the snarls of Robse (his second full-length in the roster), they seem quite suppressed by the victorious keyboards and sort of cut and paste with a lot of other growlers and snarlers who don't possess a lot of distinctiveness. But apart from that, and the fact that one out of every four series of notes are almost groan-inducing, I didn't have much of a problem with the album, because frankly I did not go into it with high expectations. They do a sort of 'party while jousting on a pony' pagan metal and they do it fairly well. LCD Wagnerian jousting music for 'Renaissance Faires' in North American backwaters. The mix is brightened to modern standards, and there's very little convincing combat grime and filth anywhere, but they do play as if they're on fire and and can't strip their suits of plate mail armor down to the lederhosen beneath quite fast enough. For fans of this niche of bands, that should prove more than enough, because let's face it, sometimes you just wanna pound down your overpriced mug of cheap festival beer while you watch all the cleavage flowing freely from the corsets passing by (or those tight leather breeches, ladies)...and this is the musical equivalent. Hey, asshole: lighten up, peace bond those replica weapons, have a turkey leg, and bring the kids at half-price.
Verdict: Win [7.25/10]
http://equilibrium-metal.net/en/
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