Kraken

Vice Versa both sound both like no folk metal band I've heard and like many folk metal bands I've heard. While their style of folk is new to me, the way they apply it to metal is painfully routine. They peddle an aggressively commercialized version of Croatian folk, fleshing it out with an endless parade of boring rudimentary chug-a-chug riffs and sugary metal leads. Long story short, it's a bit of a headache. Kraken is an annoying album, and this beast should have never bubbled to the surface.

I'm no Balkan music aficionado, but I've heard enough to realize when it comes to quality, this isn't close. For example, Balkan brass bands are a hell of a lot of fun. This is not fun, although Vice Versa desperately want to be. My Croatian friend who told me about this album said this was in line with the sort of regional folk stuff you'd see on Croatian TV. This being TV station folk makes a lot of sense - the sound is heavily polished and commercialized. It sounds lightyears away from authentic folk music. The baritone vocals are belted in a particularly cheesy manner - they come off as more Eurovision wannabes than heavy metal band here to take no prisoners. I think there's a reason the metal is padded out with goofy folk music - there's nothing to it and I can't imagine how pathetic it would sound if they tried to make a go as an exclusively metal band. Vice Versa find themselves on the side of the folk metal spectrum diametrically opposed to the sort of folk metal that's just a hair away from black metal. It's friendly, not very heavy at all, bouncy and goofy - basically baby's first metal band for kids who grew up watching Croatian TV. The chugging riffs are obvious and boring; the type of stuff that has been used to pad out bad folk metal since time immemorial. The leads are sugary and bland, they sound like a europower player who wishes he could shred, but had to slow it way down due to lack of ability.

Kraken makes me wonder how many lame folk metal bands of its ilk might exist from around the world. It's a pretty easy formula - take your local folk music, commercialize the hell out of it and add some trite chugs. Are there Mongolian dudes doing this with autotuned throat singing? A band from India chugging along to Bollywood music? Even then, those sound more interesting than this. I'm all for adding the traditional folk music of the world to well thought-out metal. But this ain't it, chief.