The
early summer of 2014 was a good time to be a folk metal fan, as June brought on
not one, but three such albums, mostly from bands that took their sweet time
working on their next release.
Falconer, Black moon rising
Black moon rising
is a pleasant album, that sends out tons of good vibes, without becoming too
cheesy or fainty, in typical Falconer vein. Relying heavily on Mathias Blad’s
simple, yet clear and warm voice and on catchy and melodious hooks that inspire
you to sing along, it doesn’t depart from the recipe of success that the band
established with the first releases. The only difference is that it seems a bit
more powerful and more aggressive than the previous albums, but not by much. Also,
Falconer set out to be a mix of power and folk metal so intertwined that I
don’t think even they used to know in which direction is the balance tipping.
On this album, however, the balance clearly tips towards power metal, as the
folk aspect is almost entirely overlooked and the only truly folkish track is Scoundrel and the Squire (which is a
nice little medieval song, with a waltz-like tempo).
As
a love child of these two genres, you can obviously expect them to have cheesy
lyrics, catchy tunes, male choirs and guitar solos and this album makes no
exception. That’s pretty much all you have, actually, as there’s not much
variety within songs and most of them follow the classic “verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus
repeated ad nauseam” structure
The
biggest problem this album has is that while each of the song is really nice
taken separately, once you put them together, the lack of variety and
inspiration becomes very obvious. This has always been a problem for Falconer
and while I do enjoy very much to listen to their songs individually, I cannot
stand a whole album of pretty much the same thing redone over and over again.
When I got to the middle of the album, I was already annoyed by the monotony of
it all. Thankfully, the second half raises the bar up a bit, with more diverse
and memorable pieces like Dawning of a
sombre age, Age of runes and especially The
priory, which has an awesome beginning and is a lot happier and more folky
then the rest of the album.
Best
songs/ weakest songs: Although The priory
stands out a bit among all the others, for the most part I can’t separate the
songs enough to differentiate a “best” and “worst” one. That can be either
good, or bad, depending on how you look at it (it doesn’t have a bad song, but
then again, it doesn’t have a particularly good one either).
Equilibrium, Erdentempel
Clearly
the best and most memorable album of the trifecta, Erdentempel is as German and as Equilibrium-ish as it can possibly
be. It’s an epic record that puts a smile on my face, with a music simple and
positive, charged with joy and naturalness. The instrumental is so folkish and joyful
and full of enthusiasm that it makes me want to jump, dance, mosh... in fact,
if you can listen to this standing completely still, then I dare say there’s
something wrong with you :P
First
of all, I really like it when a band decides to sing in its native language and
for a folk band, this works particularly well as it brings out a sense of
authenticity. The only thing I don’t really get is why Heavy Chill has an English title and yet the lyrics are in German.
The best part about this album, however, is the great variety, especially when
it’s manifested inside a genre that isn’t particularly known for
experimentation and crossing the boundaries. As a creation of simple men, used
mostly as a form of expressing the soul of a people, folk music is by definition
simple and effective, but that doesn’t mean it has to be reduced to repeating
the same song over and over again (you know who I’m talking to, Falconer). And
Equilibrium take this “simple, yet effective” characteristic and run away with it,
while also using a great range of instruments, in a pretty surprising way. Even
though the growling is a bit monotonous (as it usually is anyway), the
instrumental more than makes up for it. As opposed to other songs from the same
genre, the tracks from Erdentempel provide
room for evolution and it doesn’t mean that you heard the whole song if you
heard the first half of it (ahem, Falconer). There are a lot of changes of pace
and of atmosphere (as many as you can have in a band that sings folk metal with
medieval influences, of course; it’s Equilibrium, not Opeth, you know) and
there are even some clean vocals at some point, a premiere for them. I love
that for the most part they’re epic and triumphant, but they still have moments
where they prove they don’t take themselves too seriously, like the chorus from
Wirtshaus Gaudi, where the lead
singer sounds like a little troll that’s enjoying chaos and mischief.
All
in all, it’s a good, solid album, but one that’s mostly appreciated by fans of
the genre, so don’t go expecting any life-altering revelations, because you
won’t find them here. Even though they don’t fully depart from the cliches of
the genre, Equilibrium seem to have matured and they sound more melodic and
coherent than ever.
Best
songs: Waldschrein, Wellengang (it’s
epic and it’s awesome and I don’t even mind that the guitar is straight out of
The Pirates of the Caribbean OST), Apokalypse
(it’s a nice spot of colour in the middle of all the folk metal)
Weakest
songs: Freiflug (that sing-song
“aaaa” in the chorus puts me to sleep; it doesn’t help that they keep repeating
it all throughout the song)
Elvenking, The pagan manifesto
I’m
not sure what Elvenking were trying to achieve with this album and sadly, I
don’t think they themselves know it either. It’s a collection of songs (sorry,
I can’t call it an album) that oscillates between some unfortunate experiments
and following their recipe of success. It has been described as a return to the
roots by most and while some songs are indeed that, it’s their most bold album
so far. That does not make it a good album, however.
Don’t
get me wrong, I appreciate their desire for innovation and what they were
trying to achieve, but the execution fell a bit short. Ok, that’s a mild way to
put it, the more accurate thing would be to say they should stick to bouncy
happy music and leave the 12-minutes epics to bands who can do them properly.
The individual parts don’t sound bad at all, but they have HUGE problems when
it comes to transitions, they are very awkward and sudden. It sounds like
someone pasted 7 different songs together, without any worry about cursiveness.
There’s alternative metal, there are gothic choirs, there are even some Dani
Filth-like screeches and for the most part I’m listening to the whole display
of forces with bafflement and thinking to myself “now why’d you have to go do
that????”. Most of the times, there isn’t coherence even within the same
musical section, as the vocal line and the instrumental sound like they’re from
totally different pictures.
The
vocals are not that great either. I was never a fan of Damnagoras’ voice (in
fact I avoided Elvenking for quite some time precisely because of the voice),
but honestly, I would take back that old hollow voice in a heartbeat if this is
what the alternative is. I don’t know if he’s going through a middle age crisis
or something, but his voice sounds like that of a teenager. Immature, screechy,
shaky and with far less individuality than he used to have.
At
the opposite pole there’s the medieval bouncy cheesy folk metal they were known
for, which they have clearly mastered (I especially love the use of the violin,
it’s the best part of the whole album). Elvenlegions,
The druid of ritual oak and Towards the shores are all nice catchy
songs that put you in a good mood (hey, they even remembered that each album
has to have at least three references to elves; they are the Elvenking, after
all), but my favourite is Pagan manifesto.
It’s a crazy whirlwind of everything that I listen to folk metal for and like I
said, I think they should just stick to that since they’re obviously not mature
enough for... whatever those new songs want to be.
Best
songs: definitely Pagan manifesto, I
just love it
Weakest
songs: as the embodiment of everything that is wrong with this album, I
nominate King of the elves
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