Tiurida

It’s been a long six years for Vratyas’ fans and even longer since a complete sounding album was pressed under the name of Falkenbach, but this years offering comes darned close. Tiurida doesn’t precisely pick up right where Heralding – The Fireblade left off and that is a good thing. It instead goes back a bit further to Ok Nefna Tysvar Ty and finally seems to unite all of those new directions that Vratyas had developed for Falkenbach throughout those years.

Tiurida has a measure of everything in it to please every faction of Falkenbach’s fanbase. “Time Between Dog and Wolf” and “In Flames” bring a measure of ferocity back to Falkenbach’s sound and gives something new for the black/viking metallers to enjoy alongside their old Falkenbach favourites; with the aid of the Vindsval members shows well in these tracks. Although I would not say that it’s the riffs that are providing this ferocity, as they are very much long, drawn out “Falkenbachesque” rhythms and melodies, the drums and singing are what stands out here. The drummer seamlessly pounds under the guitars, utilizing his double kick as more of an accent to where he feels the music needs it versus simply jogging along to the whole track. The singer, although sounding moderately slurred at first, sings akin to a man who wants to provide anger behind the lyrics. He sounds almost as if he was half yelling whilst growling out the words and had to be volume adjusted so he didn’t take up too much spotlight.

For the fans of the more epic, Falkenbach brings forth “Runes Shall You Know” and “Where His Ravens Fly…” These tracks really shine through on this album and deserve to be listed amongst the best of Falkenbach. They are gems to listen to and the lyrics really fold you into the fantastic worlds and lands that Vratyas paints with such songs – past company being, for example, “Into The Ardent Awaited Land” or “The Heathenish Foray”. The choral style singing works extremely well in these songs and provides a resonance behind the lyrics that causes their words to stick with the listener. Vratyas has clearly worked on his singing over the years as his presentation rises above the other members of his small choir, even though it sounds like he tried to keep it even, and the fantastic singing that marked “Havamal” (from Ok Nefna…) as one of Vratyas’ best new musical directions once again shows here. See “Runes Shall You Know”.

The last three tracks to mention “Sunnavend”, “Tanfana” and the rerecorded “Asaland” can best be summed up as the reasons why this album isn’t a 100% effort, as they are all tracks that sound incomplete. “Tanfana” is a great sounding song with excellent music that deserves of some lyrical direction, but for whatever reason received none and its replay value compared to the other songs will suffer for that fact. This song easily could have been another “Time Between Dog and Wolf” or “In Flames” and would have provided a nice dichotomy on this album between the epic and the fierce!
“Sunnavend” has some quickly sung lines in it that sort of stave off the instrumental moniker and though this track could have duelled with “As Long As Winds Will Blow” considering its penchant for acoustic guitars, but it falls short sadly due to the lack of extended lyrics and will more than likely get the same treatment as “Tanfana”. As for “Asaland”, well, this song seems simply like a bad attempt at bringing back the instrumental excellence that was “Baldurs Tod”. It does however succeed in taking a horrendous demo recording and transform it into a properly arranged song. Hell, it might even grow on me.

Overall, this album comes very close to sounding as complete as the first two offerings and gives those past Falkenbach masterpieces a good run for their money. Though it falls short at providing a perfect dichotomy due to some unfinished sounding songs this is a definite step in the right direction for Falkenbach.