I have a few friends that always rant and rave about folk metal. I've tried numerous times to get into folk metal but I usually end up not liking it because of the vocals/lyrics. I understand that the bands are meant to be "fun" but for some reason it's not my thing.

Anyone know of any folk metal without the cheesiness in the lyrics/vocals?

MAEL MORDHA; they have been recently mentioned in another thread, but really they are an excellent Folk Doom band.
A tip: check the data base and add the tag "Doom" or "Black" to "folk", I doubt anything festive will come out.

how about bands with lyrics in another language, such as Калевала or good ol' finntroll?

the music of either can be as cheerful as any folk band, but if the lyrics are the only thing that bother you...

Would Moonsorrow and Finsterforst be to obvious? If not they should by right up your street. Finsterforst make great use of the accordian and have just released their new album which heads in a darker direction.

Not sure if you'll categorize this band as straight up "folkmetal" but they have certain folk-ish influences...check out Forefather. Quite a solid band that I've been listening to for ages.

Edit: Yes yes, I missed out the word 'without'. Apologies >_>

Umm, I guess the folk metal bands that actually do have lyrics about drinking and partying present in more than one or two songs are less than, say, 5%. So your request pretty much is folk metal without cheesiness, I assume you're looking for the more folk influenced stuff than average viking/pagan band. I'll just list some examples, as your request covers almost entire genre...

Menhir:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCOCiXk6ZMM

Odroerir:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LIwZOKrn18

Heol Telwen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qyp_BCrIz68

Hromovlad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1H1wI0zQgg

Storm:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8m3Q7juUNE

Biały Viteź:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lr1g86-yHDM

Martolea:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0TtkVCjrO0

Graveland:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq9ghyeYIss

To the guys some posts above: the title says WITHOUT cheesy lyrics. And no fun. Try to read.

How is it possible Eluveitie hasn't been mentioned yet? Check out their album Slania, my personal favorite. It's a delightful mix of Celtic folk and Melodic Death metal, and seeing a woman headbang while playing a hurdy-gurdy is priceless. Suidakra is also pretty good, but they're more of a Melodic Death metal band with folk influences, except on their second latest album "Crogacht."

OP wanted no cheese...

Suidakra is good though, just skip eluveitie.

Agalloch and moonsorrow are arguably two of the best folk metal bands around, no cheese imo

Check out the first Asmegin full length and Myrkgrav. Two of the few folk bands I really like.

Also Falkenbach.

OT, but I never could get what's better about Asmegin's debut than Arv. Whatever.

Everything? It's much more original in my opinion, Arv feels safe compared to the debut.

Agreed! I just got their split with Graveland and they're awesome! I wasn't really expecting much of Biały Viteź (honestly I was just interested in Graveland) but they really impressed me. I'd love to hear a full-length album from these guys, especially with some good resources and production. They could be the next great band in pagan/folk metal to come out of Poland.

You think they're cheesy?

How about Devil in the Kitchen? From what I remember, they don't have any lyrics.

Vintersorg? Nebelhorn? Thrudvangaar?

I'm going to re-iterate Falkenbach - probably the least cheesy folk-metal band I listen to frequently.

Also try the second Isengard album. It's always seemed a bit cheesy in places to me, but on the whole, it feels very sincere and at times beautiful.

Depending on whether or not you're looking for heavily black metal laced folk, you could try both Askival and Falloch, as well as a host of other mainly black-metal bands which incorporate varying styles of folk into their music.

Waylander and Primordial are good if you're into Black Metal or enjoy the Celtic brands of folk metal. Cruachan also gets lumped with the previous two, might be worth a listen. Seconding Suidakra and Eluveitie.

Arkona and Wolfchant are good tries for Pagan and Viking brands of folk metal.

Thank you for mentioning Primordial and to a lesser extent Waylander. Reawkening Pride Once Lost and Honor Amongst Chaos are primordial . Primordial Pretty much everything is awesome, though Imrana the band was more finding their sound. You might want to look into the eastern european brand of folk/pagan/bm stuff. I'm not really too familiar with it, but it seems to be an immense, stately style of pagan metal with flutes/traditional instruments to go with it.

This is totally not what you are looking for
but anyway...here is some Argentinian folk metal with great lyrics
and local music influences

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdsdUGhXszA

Vintersorg is a great recommendation, although in terms of Folk Metal, I would stick to his first 3-4 albums. After that, his music becomes more spacey-science ficitony. Still good, but not the killer folk metal of the first few.

Celtachor is an awesome new (well, their album is pretty new) blackened folk metal band worth checking out. I played a festival in England they were at; they were easily my favorite band from the shows.
http://celtachor.bandcamp.com/

Shambless (note the Summoning hints here and there)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAh3EcuQUxg

Nothgard
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mv76z3tzoJI

Anabioz
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyV1YPO-mnc