Hellish Hunt

One day you wake up and without meaning to, without looking for it, you come across something that makes you flip out of your chair and say "FUCK, WOW!". In the midst of the hundreds of shoddy releases that the current metal scene offers us every day, every week, unearthing a band like Grymheart and listening to this debut-album is a sensation too good to be true.

Take a good dose of Ensiferum, a pinch of Norther and a dash of Wintersun; add a touch of Equilibrium or Elvenking and you have Grymheart. Okay, you might say there is no originality, there is nothing we have heard before, and you might fail this band and this debut record.... Well, legit, Grymheart's proposal isn't innovative, but what they offer is an outstanding record in quality, execution and appeal.

After a little relaxing acoustic/celtic intro, the following four tracks are four sudden stomach punches, one after the other. Powerful and fast riffs that harken back to the best Ensiferum with Jari Mäenpää. The vocalist's screams go hand in hand with the relentless, aggressive rhythm dictated by a double bass drum fired to the max and fast rhythm guitars like we can hear in "Iron" and "Windrider" of Ensiferum or "Mirror of Madness" of Norther. Army of the Graves, is a mid-tempo with an excellent chorus, the pace and violence drops a bit, something like "Land of Snow and Sorrow" of Wintersun; rightly mid-disc, to let us catch our breath just five minutes in. With the following three songs, we back to hammering away with the always present machine-gunning double bass drum, alternated by the more cadenced but no less brutal Facing the Kraken and the concluding suite, that with its 8 minutes of perfect mix of what we've heard in the previous 10 songs offers magical acoustic celtic-folk parts, crazy and powerful riffs and drums, enveloping choruses and technical, very melodic solos. A full lenght that catches your attention totally, from the magic air spreaded by the folk parts in pure Ensiferum/Elvenking style, to an incredible violence of sound, perfectly referable to the fastest tracks in the tipical melodic death-folk metal like "Sword Chant" or "Slayer of Light". In the middle, impossible not to metion the mighy chours who accompany the whole album. "Lai Lai Hei" and "Abandoned" can get you an idea of what I'm talking about. A special mention to the talented frontman Gábor Kovács aka Gabriel Blacksmith, amazing guitarist and singer. Already guitarist in Wisdom, here he offers a magnificent vocal test with screams, not deviating much from the timbre and style, of course, of Petri Lindroos and Jari Mäenpää.

Perfect sound, excellent songs in every way, fast, powerful, with drums that hammer from start to finish and guitars that offer mighty riffs and outstanding solos. Definitely influenced by the melodic death/power/folk/viking of Ensiferum and Wintersun and Elvenking especially regarding the folk parts and on old Norther for the pounding riffs and double bass drum parts, Grymheart debuts with a bang with a practically perfect record.

Norther are dead, Ensiferum are now the faded copy of Ensiferum with Jari and Wintersun are releasing with dropper drops...so for all nostalgic fans of these three bands, Grymheart is a breath of fresh air, energy and new blood. These guys will have a bright future ahead of them if they keep this up. Better debut could not be wished.

Go Grymheart!