A Listener’s Guide to ‘Defying The Righteous Way’ by Cardinals Folly

CARDINALS FOLLY belong to the Reverend Bizarre school of doom, but also takes its cues from ‘80s Gothic rock. In this way, Cardinals Folly (who started life as The Coven in 2004) and Lord Vicar were among the first to pioneer a sound that soon caught on with other bands like Acolytes of Moros, Caskets Open, and Weird Tales, to name a few. Their style makes for a transfixing listening experience and I’ve been enamored of the band since discovering their first LP, “Such Power Is Dangerous!’ (2011). Who would have dreamed then that the trio from Helsinki would one day be playing Doomed & Stoned Festival?

It’s also hard to believe that the doomed crew of Count Karnstein (bass, vox), Nordic Wrath (guitar), and Battle Ram (drums) are now on album number five, with two EPs and two splits also under their belt. As prolific as Cardinals Folly seem, they don’t seem to have lost their edge on 'Defying The Righteous Way’ (2020). After all, this far into an artist’s discography I’m used to picking up on notes of lethargy, with some bands having to really stretch the definition of a "song” just to get another album out there (usually under contractual obligation). When you do what you do for the love of music, the compositional pen flows freely.

Let’s start with the title. Defying The Righteous Way is an obvious dig at one of the Norseman’s truest adversaries: Christianity. When the religion of Jesus came to Finland it was an aggressive ideology of conquest co-opted by the Catholic Church. The Northern Crusades saw to it that one way or another the Skandanavian people were converts, even if in name only. Before metal, there was still a heavy underground, so to speak, comprised of resisters who may have given lip service to The Cloth, but a very pagan connection to the earth.

The modality of Cardinals Folly quite often marries doom with ancient mannerisms of song, illustrated in the stately Medieval rhythm and the chanting chorus of “The Great Santur.” I think it is this aspect of the band’s output I’ve enjoyed the most, as it feels like they’re somehow bridging a connection to the past, when resentments simmered for clergy and king alike.

For newer listeners, Defying The Righteous Way makes as good an introduction as any to the band’s characteristic sound and style portfolio. Cardinals Folly toggles between fast-trotting songs like “Witchfinders,” mid-tempo stompers like “Last House On The Left,” and the more traditional slow burners like “Stars Align Again.” In this way, they call to mind Saint Vitus (especially the Scott Reagers-era) out of all the Fathers of Doom.

If I have any complaint, it’s simply that there isn’t enough sadness on the album for my taste, with the exception of “Last House On The Left,” which has some very effective moments of melancholia in its second half. Maybe it’s because Mikko Kääriäinen’s vocals have always hinted of sorrow for me, but they’re mostly used to express gravity. I suppose “Strange Conflict” does come closer to scratching my depressive itch. By the way, I do love its Joy Division-esque pulse during the six-minute mark.

While the songs may not pop out immediately in a sing-along sense, the collective vibe does grow on you. There’s an undeniable energy about Defying The Righteous Way that reveals a band with finely tuned musical instincts and a damning fire within, still longing to Burn The Priest.

Give ear…

Doomed & Stoned recently asked Mikko Kääriäinen (aka Count Karnstein) if he would illuminate the new Cardinal’s Folly album, 'Defying The Righteous Way’ (2020). He responded by giving us this in-depth track-by-track breakdown, which fans of the band will surely relish.

STARS ALIGN AGAIN

DERANGING THE PRIEST

Once the Deranged Pagan Sons have been let loose, things can’t be stopped anymore. Second track unleashes NWOBHM-influenced galloping dirty heavy metal goodness with anti-religious statement and fury. Continuing on the path set by the previous album and it’s title track indeed, “Deranging the Priest” unleashes even more wrath upon the tyranny created by righteous men. This song is traditional doom’s own church burner.

WITCHFINDERS

Vicious metal riffs combined with the pathos of a psychotic witchfinder, a modern day Matthew Hopkins who sets out to punish evil witches in his own right. Disappointment in women was probably a major fuel in this fire, heh! This is maybe my favorite from the album. What’s funny is that we almost dropped it. Right before the studio we had this and another song with our finger on the trigger, we needed to drop either of them to cut the album down to 45 minutes. Luckily we chose right, because on our recent German tour, this became an instant live hit as well.

THE GREAT SANTUR

Originally meant as the album-closer track, “The Great Santur” again demonstrates our own take on nordic mysticism and it’s epicness from the opening bell, and never lets it go. I love playing this song, because it’s so ceremonial, and the chorus fills my mind with epic visions each time I sing it. The intro sample again is a throwback from the past, reminding us of “Secret of the Runes” from the previous album “Deranged Pagan Sons” (2017) and “Walvater Proclaimed!” from the Lucifer’s Fall split (2019). I’m hearing a lot of Bathory, Summoning and even very early Amorphis in this one! We ended up choosing this as the A side closer, because it’s slightly shorter than “Strange Conflict”, and we nowadays plan all album structures with the vinyl format in mind, so it’s divided in two halves.

THE LIVING DEAD

“The Living Dead” opens the second half of the album, which is an introduction to the B side, if you’re listening to the vinyl version. It works the same way on any format, providing a brief séance and another visit to the bizarre horror classic “Psychomania” (1971), that we already tributed a track to on our third album “Holocaust of Ecstasy & Freedom” (2016)…

ULTRA-VIOLENCE

…which brings us to “Ultra-Violence”, or more like throws it suddenly straight into our face. A fierce punk-doomer that deals with A Clockwork Orange and energy to stomp down a bunch of devotchkas after a hazy night in the korova milk bar. Slight doom part in the middle calms it down before the final attack. Music and lyrics for this one came from me already in 2016 before the previous album, but it was just waiting to boil up a bit. Definitely our most punky song so far. Anthony Burgess and Stanley Kubrick rule.

LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT

Doom, horror films and bloodlust definitely dominate the majority of the B-side of this album, and thus this song dedicated to Wes Craven’s best film grabs the torch from its equally disturbing predecessor honorably, travelling through suburbs with Krug’s horny and homicidal gang. It’s grooviness is definitely one of the malicious and deadly kinds. As life escapes from the girls of this story, so does the groovy rockiness transform slowly into screams of horror, dirges of melancholy and hopelessness, and finally into a slow final riff draining our life into an uncertain death…

STRANGE CONFLICT

I guess it’s an unwritten rule that every Cardinals Folly album should carry within itself some sort of homage to the “Prince of Thriller Writers”, the late Dennis Wheatley (1877-1977). The title reminds us of the early works compilation we released through Shadow Kingdom Records back in 2013, yet it pays tribute to Wheatley’s 1940 WWII black magic novel, where the nazis are determining the routes of the secret British atlantic convoys by using a witch doctor in Haiti, leading into an epic white magic/black magic battle. Musically it travels from epic doom to Iron Maiden-ish heavy metal takeoff, which boils down to the final slow doomed hypnotic dirge of the album, that floats us again towards uncharted seas and uncertain fates..