Blood and Iron

It isn’t often you see a folk metal band from the UK. OK, you have Forefather, but little else has come out of UK’s folk metal scene. That’s not to say there aren’t any bands playing folk metal, they just aren’t among the ‘big guns’. Whilst I can’t say that Shieldwall is one of the ‘big guns’ yet, I can see them easily becoming one.


The first thing that hits me from this demo is its production, which is actually quite good, giving the album a relatively clean feel. The songs have an upbeat feel to them that has me screaming along with the choruses pretty quickly. Whilst listening I cannot help but imagine sitting in a tavern, girl on my lap and a mug of ale in my hand, recounting tales of battle with my comrades. What I am trying to say, is that the demo really succeeds in creating the atmosphere of Dark Age Britain, which I think is what the band were going for.


However, this is not a perfect release. My main complaint has to be that sometimes the music drowns out the clean vocals, which does sometimes spoil certain parts of the song. Also, the band uses a ‘clicky’ bass drum sound, which sometimes gets on my nerves, but that’s only my personal opinion.


Overall, I feel that this is a solid release, and I am looking eagerly forward to the album… which as this scribe writes is on its way via snail mail. This band is clearly heading for great things.