Odin Will Provide

It's difficult to find a decent melodic death metal band on the western side of the Atlantic that isn't either milking its American marriage to metalcore or all but completely plagiarizing Children Of Bodom, but those who seek this end are encouraged to look no further than Æther Realm. Naturally one will also have to mind a strong helping of folksy elements, but for the most part this band tends to steer clear of a lot of the overt "period instrument" craze that tends to come with bands that are cut after the whole craze started by Turisas, but nevertheless does have a pretty strong keyboard element and definitely throws in a nice catchy tune in the non-vocal department.

"Odin Will Provide" might hint at a Viking metal sound, but Æther Realm is about as stereotypically Viking metal as Amon Amarth, though they sound much closer to a Finnish version of the melodeath style. There's a heavy amount of similarity in the overall arrangement to keyboard happy yet measured acts such as Insomnium and Mors Principium Est where the guitars do most of the talking and the keyboards play a very active support role but definitely don't get overtly technical. At the same time, the thrashing animation of Kalmah can be gleaned from the quite active riff attach on here, providing a very effective counterpoint to an otherwise atmospheric arrangement.

Leading off this rather brief EP is "Ravensong", which is definitely the lighter of the two songs heard in the equation. It wouldn't be a mistake to see this song in a similar vein to the more melodic death oriented early works of Ensiferum such as "Hero In A Dream", and it does employ some clean gang vocals to further bolster the comparison. The riff work is a bit more overtly melodeath influenced and built primarily out of recurring tremolo melodies and occasional stops and starts, but it's definitely the closest this band ventures into power metal territory. The title song "Odin Will Provide", by contrast, is much less celebratory and has more of an epic yet depressive feel to it, definitely closer to the traditional sound first promoted by Dark Tranquillity.

This is an excellent new band for anyone states side who wants to hear something that's aggressive and not tied in with that annoying New England metalcore sound that's been so prominent for the past 7 or 8 years. This EP is more of a preview to even greater things to come than it is an entity unto itself, and those looking for the full experience are encouraged to go ater their debut LP "One Chosen By The Gods", which has both of these songs along with several others cut from the same exact grain. Don't let the Turisas' imagery on the band's photo fool you, this is a good bit darker and closer to the roots of the Finnish sound of the early 2000s and not as steeped in symphonic pomp.