Liar Flags

The backstory is fairly boring, but suffice to say that I had to listen to this album, otherwise I wouldn't go anywhere near a genre I'm so severely allergic to. I kept on expecting it so suck, waiting for that eventual cheesy as hell panflute section, or a really really bad dance-a-jig korpiklaani kinda bullshit thingo. Instead, another 10 or so listens later I think i've stumbled upon the second good folk metal album that exists! That assumes that you're willing to stretch the genre enough to call Bergtatt "folk metal", and if you don't, this is currently the only good one.

Runic's success I think is based on a few things; they cram a lot of cool melodies into each song, the song writing is busy and has plenty of parts but still flows real well, and how they have figured out that rarest of metal things, which is synths that don't really really suck. I wouldn't say it's ever really heavy, but the guitars have this neat tendency to always be playing something that's quite cool. Rarely is there just a bunch of boring chords plodding along; there's lead lines aplenty, plenty of neat harmony sections, and while the riffs aren't ripping your head off they're doing enough often enough for it to be interesting.

The synths/general layering deserves a mention, with Runic jamming everything into everything all the time. This would normally be my personal hell, but maybe it's the well done mixing, or that the synths also have stuff to say instead of just doing pads constantly paddin', but I'm not complaining. It's a wonderfully immersive album, with the synths, guitars, female vocals, growled vocals all coming together and working much, much better than they have any right to. Worth loading up whatever fantasy RPG or particular book you really enjoy in the genre, chucking Runic on and just drifting away from the never ending pandemic, the planet cooking, whatever angst you've got.

If I had to nitpick, I would maybe argue that things are maybe a bit sameish, and while it is a very nice background sound, sometimes it is maybe a bit too much so; the production is quite restrained and muted which both helps it in points but also makes it quite easily ignorable. If that makes sense? Certainly, there could maybe be a few bits that are a bit heavier, or a bit more sparse, a bit slower, whatever. Still, consider that a small thing, far from a dealbreaker.

A friend of mine insists that this is 2nd rate Ensiferum but I can't recall giving Ens so much time or that band whisking me away to another world as well as this album does. Absolutely worth getting! Very glad this album came my way.