The Batlord

Tell me you're gonna throw in some Turisas for Viking metal? A bit like a combination of In Flames and power metal I guess. They do some screaming, but you can still hear what he's saying, and they've put out at least two concept albums, all about Viking stuff. Just steer clear of their latest one.

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Trollheart

Thanks. I needed suggestions for the last part, so they're in for sure.

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The Batlord

The Varangian Way would be your best starting point probably. It's the first part of a two-album concept, and it's just fantastic. The other half, Stand Up and Fight, is also fantastic.

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Key

Happy to see that 1912 did well for you, TH. It does take a lot out of you to listen to it fully as it doesn't slow down until the end. I always found that as a strength. Sort of shows that they can keep a fast and steady flow through the entire album. However I understand your remark completely. When I heard the album for the first time, Tommy's vocals blew me away instantly, which BTW, he's only in his late 20's.

If you liked that, you should give Welcome ToThe Theatre a listen. Its another concept album dealing with multiple movie references. Very well done lyrically.

Great review as always.

Isbjørn

Fun fact: they speak Swedish in certain parts of Finland since they were part of the Swedish Empire (like the Roman empire, but less badass) for centuries. And I can understand Finntroll's lyrics, piece of cake. *smug grin* In case you were wondering, "Trollhammaren" is about a troll who rides around seeking "weak Christian blood". And he has a mighty hammer.

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Isbjørn

Just saw your... eh... Satan's album cover entries. Popping in to say that I have that Black Sabbath artwork on a t-shirt. The album itself is pretty neat too, underrated. Carry on.

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Janszoon

You know you posted the googly eyes version of that Behemoth cover, right Satan?

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A Night in the Life of the Invisible Man

Time & Place

25 Albums You Should Hear Before the Moon Crashes into the Earth and We All Die

last.fm

Trollheart

RAAAGGGHHHHH! CURSE GOOGLE! CURSE IT TO THE DEEPEST HELL!!!!!!!!


Now I have a fucking headache! Gragghh! Where's my CD of relaxation music? What do you mean, you stood on it????

GRAWWWWWWWWWWWGGHHHHH!

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Trollheart

As we start to wind up our brief excursion into the metal of Spain, I'd like to change tack completely and go in a totally different direction. David Valdes began playing guitar at the tender age of thirteen, found he liked metal best and joined some bands of whom you nor I has ever heard. He then got into the neoclassical guitar of Yngwie Malmsteen, and through the virtuoso guitarist discovered a love for classical music, which he has imbued his own output with. All his compositions are instrumental, so no problem with trying to decipher lyrics, though as I have already pointed out many times reviewing an instrumental album is a lot harder than writing about one with vocals.

I had wanted to take his latest effort, 2013's “World i obscure”, but Spotify only have one of his albums --- to be honest, I'm surprised they even had one! --- and so this is the one I'm going with.

Imhotep --- David Valdes --- 2006 (Heavencross)
Nice keyboard opening to “Beyond the universe”, then it kicks up on a heavy guitar with very much metal credentials, driving the piece along nicely. Some nice runs and solos, with percussion provided by Ferren Roch, fretwork acquires a touch of Arabic style in the last minute, and we move on into “Run up the melody”, where a real rippling solo takes the tune, much faster and more in the style of power metal here as Valdes lets himself go and Roch thunders along behind the drumkit. Things slow down in the middle with a pretty expressive piece of playing, double or triple-tracked guitars creating quite a wall of sound. “Return to the shadows” rocks everything along nicely, with a sort of dark growling guitar sound allied to a wailing keyboard. This man can certainly play! Touches of progressive metal about this, nice lush keyboard and acoustic guitar melding in the last minute with a hint of Gilmour thrown in there, not to mention some Spanish guitar --- well, you'd expect that, wouldn't you?

The title track is up next, and it's a quiet, reflective opening with acoustic guitar and choral vocals on the synth, little or no percussion for the moment, then as we move into the first minute it growls up and becomes a hard stomping metal monster, Roch punching in the beat as he charges in on the drums. I'm really enjoying this, but so far I haven't heard anything that could be described as neoclassical. Still, we're only four tracks in, of thirteen, so plenty of time for that I guess. For now it's just straightahead heavy metal, and very satisfying it is too. Think he might be using a talkbox there, but it's very subdued if so. A return to the quieter tone of the opening in the third minute as it all slows down and the choral vocals rise to the fore, then we're back rocking with one hell of a solo to take us to the end of the track.

I'm sure a guitarist could wax lyrical for hours about the techniques used here, the equipment and the way the effects are employed, but I couldn't play a guitar to save my life and understand little of their workings, so I'm left to just try to describe the music and how well it's played. “Bouree”, the shortest track here at just over two minutes, sounds like it's played on a lute or lyre, and is very medieval in nature. I could almost hear flutes and whistles coming in as accompaniment. No? No. The piece is over pretty quickly, and I guess to a degree, with its somewhat baroque style could be said to be the first indications of neoclassical on the album. “Lake of silence” turns out to belie its title, as it's a romping rocker with galloping drums, while “In darkness” seems more of a candidate for a slow song, with its deep stately synth opening. It's not though, as it quickly ramps up to a serious metal fret-out with dark elements. It does slow down in the end though, floating out on a really nice pastoral acoustic guitar, bringing in “Heart of pharaohs”.

Another rocker, this one features some pretty dirty guitar and a rising synth line with some effect on the guitar that makes it sound like it's snarling a vocal, unless Valdes slipped a sneaky one in (stop it, Batty! Settle down...) and develops into a mid-paced kind of a tune with some really nice shredding, some of it quite Brian May in tone. Rather disappointingly though, there's nothing the faintest bit Egyptian about it. Maybe he felt it would be too much of a cliche, but I would have liked to have heard a “Powerslave” or even Santana-style riff, maybe a Dio? Seems a lot of Mike Oldfield circa “Tubular Bells II” in “Castle in Heaven”, but to be brutally honest it's a little boring. In fact, the whole album has sort of begun to peter out for me now --- it's always hard holding the interest in an instrumental album I know, much more so a guitar one, but still, it sounds like he's just on autopilot now --- so I hope we can get back to the quality for the last four tracks.

The next one up is called “1099 Adagio”, so I'm hopeful for some neoclassical, or even just classical, to come into Valdes's music, and indeed here it comes: one of the best tracks so far. He really handles the Greats so well, putting his own slant on music that has been around and enjoyed for centuries, that he should do more of it. He's a great guitarist, but some of his more metal stuff on this album has definitely started to bore me, as it's beginning all to sound too much the same. This is nice though, and an example of what he can do when he steps outside the often rigid boundaries he has constructed to work within. Rather surprised to hear “Speed metal cop” begin with a gentle flowing passage before it kicks up into something more akin to progressive then power metal, but it's pretty alright. Lot of tension in it and, oddly enough, I hear the Egyptian sound here!

“Voices in a deep” starts with slow dark synth but that's quickly left behind as we head into another fretfest, the keys joining in and pursuing the guitar as it chugs along. Some screaming solos but then it quietens down nicely in the midsection, where Senor Valdes gets all reflective before knocking it back up a notch, and we close on “Far away”, a nice sort of relaxed atmosphere to it. I'm a little disappointed though that there were no real ballads on this, and as I said earlier, more neoclassical should have been a must. Started off very well indeed but pretty quickly got old and a little stifling. Guess it's hard to keep the interest unless you play yourself.

TRACKLISTING

1. Beyond the universe
2. Run up the melody
3. Return to the shadows
4. Imhotep
5. Bouree
6. Lake of silence
7. In darkness
8. Heart of pharaohs
9. Castle in Heaven
10. 1099 Adagio
11. Speed metal cop
12. Voices in a deep
13. Far away

I actually had expected to be raving about this guy, from what I had read and from my initial listens, but as it went on his music just seemed to get a little samey and I was waiting for something to happen. It didn't. He's still a great guitarist, of that there's no question, though he's hardly quite in the Plankton league just yet. Better than Neal Schon, certainly his solo work anyway. I didn't find myself falling asleep halfway through like I did when listening to “The calling”. But metal is either about (mostly) excitement, speed, aggression and power, or in some cases a cosmic shift towards the quiet, pastoral and quite often utterly beautiful. This had flashes of both, but really settled more on the former than the latter, and even that was a little cliched.

Hard to rate I'll admit, but for me this just didn't shine the way I had thought it would. I've said it before more than once: an instrumental album really has to work to keep my attention all the way through, and this one just started to coast along in the latter half, whereupon I began to care less. Finished well, and started well, with some good stuff in between, but sadly, just not quite enough good stuff.

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Trollheart

Hey! How freaky is this? Not only is the next album on the list by a Finnish band, recorded in the same year as Finntroll’s, but it has a logo which looks like that of ReinXeed, who I only reviewed a day or so ago!

Wintersun --- Wintersun --- 2004 (Nuclear Blast)
Recommended by JustinJJustin
We are however back to melodic death metal, though with a symphonic thrown in too, so to be honest I’m not sure what to think! At least these guys sing in English, assuming I can understand the vocal, which given the subgenre is by no means certain. This is their debut album, and they’re a spinoff from some other Finnish outfit --- Ensiferum, I think: yeah, Ensiferum --- who are themselves a Folk Metal band, so there may be some interesting mixes in here. But I’ve not had the best luck with death metal --- melodic or otherwise --- so I’ll reserve judgement for now.

Starts off oddly enough like a Power Metal song, then dark but not (!) growly vocals intone some lines before they break into a big scratchy scream. But hey, it’s not too bad and “Beyond the dark sun” opens the album well. Some great guitar work from I would assume two axemen? Wow, no! It’s another two-man outfit, with mainman Jari Mäenpää taking everything bar the drums. That’s guitar, bass, keyboards and vocals. Impressive. “Winter madness” is a longer song, mostly riding on the frenetic guitar and blastbeat drums, but it’s a little hard to pick out any highlights as it’s all just fast and powerful with no specific melody or passage I can nail my flag to. Good though.

Seems Mäenpää was fired from his parent band when he tried to record this album, so I guess it’s very personal and important to him. As he told Metaleater.com: ” Lyrically it's quite a personal record, but there's a little bit of fantasy also. Actually, you can understand the songs by many ways and meanings, which is great. But underneath all the metaphors to stars, space, vast and cold winter landscapes, it's all about my personal life: my feelings, emotions, thoughts, dreams, visions and hallucinations. [...] Every song is a highlight and important to me in their own ways. "Beautiful Death" and "Battle Against Time" were therapeutic to write, because they deal with the negative sides of my life and it was good to get those feelings on paper and into music. "Death and the Healing", "Sleeping Stars" and "Sadness and Hate" are very old songs that still live on, so they have sentimental value.” (Copied direct from Wiki page Wintersun (album) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

“Sleeping stars” sees a departure from the frantic, breakneck speed of the first two tracks, with a slower, swinging rhythm that’s almost, but not quite, in ballad territory. Kind of like a saga or something, very stately and majestic with a lot of keyboards and more restrained guitar for the most part. There’s a really nice orchestral style keyboard to end and then we ramp the tempo back up as we engage in a “Battle against time”, with a very effective male chorus in the opening and a return to that dark, intoned vocal we heard at the beginning of the album. Picks up speed then and the vocal goes back to Mäenpää’s “normal” style, though the chorus/choir helps to dull the edges of that sharp, acerbic voice a little.

A very personal song to Mäenpää, “Death and the healing” recounts his own recovery from TB, contracted during his compulsory service in the Finnish military and which necessitated the removal of part of his lung. I may not like his singing, but he has a strong voice and you would not think he had anything wrong with his lungs, so fair play to him. Great guitar and keyboard intro with those choral vocals, and Mäenpää drops to the lower register for the vocal on this most intimate song. He compares himself to a wounded bird as he sings ”A windstorm dropped a bird from the sky/ It fell to the ground and its wings broke and died/ But when the time got by/ Back to sky it flied (sic)/ Cause the wings healed in time and the bird was I.”

Although only just short of eight minutes, Mäenpää has created his very own death metal version of “2112” by Rush in the five-part “Starchild”, with part I (“Wanderer of time”) opening with a big hammerfist guitar rocking along in a very Power Metal vein, then part II (“Burning star”) is much slower and more pastoral, with a hard guitar edge as Mäenpää drops momentarily to the more recognisable vocal before ramping back up for part III (“The Creation”). Letting loose on the keys he blasts along like some demented carny, Kai Hanto struggling to match him on the drums. Part IV (“The sea of stars”) seems to have a violin leading the melody, though I guess it’s on the keys and part V (“Finale”) wraps everything up in one last fretfest.

The two longest tracks close the album, with “Beautiful death” allowing Mäenpää to slip the leash and allow his fury full vent with the darker, higher vocal, guitar holding court as choral vocals swell in the background like a supporting army. Some really nice church organ is soon kicked aside by Hanto’s percussive fusillade, indeed Hanto really shines on this track, showing us what he can do when he’s given his head. The closer then is the longest track, just over ten minutes. “Sadness and hate” opens with a doleful guitar that quickly kicks up into a hard, angry one but when it gets going, with a big scream from Mäenpää, it has a really nice swinging melody, almost balladic, though not really. For a ten minute song there are not that much in the way of lyrics, so I expect some interesting musical interludes.

Happily, Mäenpää either changes his vocal style here or it is augmented by another as the lyric prepares to run out and swaying guitar takes the tune, getting sort of medieval at times with a lilting, almost pastoral melody. Actually it seems the lyric is repeated during the song, lasting up to the ninth minute, leaving us to fade out on a celestial, ethereal keyboard passage

TRACKLISTING

1. Beyond the dark sun
2. Winter madness
3. Sleeping stars
4. Battle against time
5. Death and the healing
6. Starchild
(i) Wanderer of time
(ii) Burning star
(iii) The creation
(iv) The sea of stars
(v) Finale
7. Beautiful death
8. Sadness and hate

I wouldn’t go so far as to say the vocals ruined this for me, but I would probably have appreciated it a lot more if I could have understood what was being sung. Okay that’s not fair: I could understand it (mostly through having a lyric sheet) but it wasn’t the sort of singing I like to listen to . That aside, there is some excellent music on this album and it’s well worth a listen if you are into this particular subgenre, or even if you’re not. For a man with a repaired lung, Jani Mäenpää sure knows how to give it his all, and I just wonder if his previous band are regretting the decision to let him go now?

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