Doin earde

In a genre where a lot of music sound the same, and it has to sound a certain way to be considered to be that genre, this band certainly found a way to make a unique folk metal experience.

First let us get one thing out of the way; this is not the tongue-in-cheek Korpiklaani/Alestorm type of folk metal, and it is also not a female fronted Eluveitie or Arkona clone. To me it sounds like a mixture of Celtic and German folk metal spiced with Slavic folk. When I found out that they are from northeastern Italy this makes a lot of sense, because this area is very influenced by Austria and Slovenia.

The sound seems closely related to Suidakra, Cnoc an Tursa, Forefather, and Metsatoll. This might sound like a huge span, but that is exactly how it is. It ranges from acoustic guitars with beautiful clean singing through heavy midpaced death metal riffing and growling to black metal blastbeat tremolo picking with screeching vocals.

There is no female clean singing on this album. Instead, the male singer and occasional Bathory style choirs delivers hair-raising strong melodies that will leave you singing along, even if this takes some practice, as it is not the usual cliché folky tunes. The folky instruments include Kantele, bagpipe and flutes. Also these do not just do the cliché ornamental ups and downs but add complex and beautiful melodies. They are used a lot like Metsatoll but with a fierce emotional touch reminding me of the powerful emotion on Cnoc an Tursa’s The Spellbound Knight and Forefather’s leads.

Another thing that is sparse on folk albums is guitar solos. This album has great guitar solos spread across the album. The arrangements are downright perfect. They know exactly how long to drive a certain arrangement and when to switch to make dynamic tracks with plenty of variation and smooth transitions.

I do not know anything about the lyrics as it is in Italian, but my Triestino wife says that the lyrics are very well written, and she is a literature nerd, so that is saying a lot.

The sound production is nothing short of perfect. The drums have deep bass and exceptionally crisp cymbals that are very active. The folk instruments are well integrated. The guitars are crisp, and the bass is audible. The transitions between clean and growling vocals and choirs are well controlled.