FOLK METAL REVIEWS Musica

These were written for the members of globe-l, a world music listserve.

Skyforger
Latvian Riflemen (Latviesu strelnicki)
Mascot records (2000)

The most "serious" of these albums is Latvian Riflemen, the second by Latvian folk-black metal Pagan warrior band Skyforger. The album relates, in Latvian, the story of the 8 regiments of Latvian riflemen who joined the Czarist Russia army in 1915 to repel the Germans...and died in droves over a period of several years. Latvian Riflemen begins with artillery fire and a Latvian military chorus and progresses into nihilistic tuneless speed fuzz with yelling vocals, the drums perhaps mimicking machine gun fire. The tracks at times blend Latvian and Russian folk melodies seamlessly within the guitar lines; also at times Skyforger uses flutes...or perhaps pipes...nostalgia, folk choruses, gunfire, a movie narration. There are two of what I suppose are contemporaneous poems set to music; the rest of the songs, with lyrics portraying the real historical nightmare of doomed military units in a harsh country, are by the Skyforger guitarist "Peter." The stark black and white vintage photographs add to the horror.

Skyforger has a website at http://www.telia.lv/~witchcraft/skyforger/

Finntroll
Midnattens Widunder
Spikefarm (1999)

A Canadian once told me, "The Finns are a depressive people." or I could start "Imagine Brave Combo meets Dimmu Borgir." Called "trollish black hummpa metal," there are also a number of other influences smashed into the work of Ftl. The plot is this: the pagan trolls want to get rid of the oppressive Christians and they do and then they eat mushrooms and get high. The entire album, except for the yells is growled in incomprehensible Swedish; there is a track by track synopsis in English and Swedish lyrics, but its hard to follow since all this is printed on a background of grey mica schist with limonitic iron staining in the joints. Although for the most part lacking in ethnic instruments, except for maybe a jews harp on one track, the hummpa keyboard playing is always vivid when it occurs, which is the lucky half of the time. Special effects echo Andrew Cronshaw's "On the Shoulders Of the Great Bear." The best track is the title track, with some nice accordion by Mistress Helga; this is the one where 2 men of the cloth are sitting in the sauna and a troll comes in and cuts off their ears and the sauna explodes.

Finntroll is composed of former (?) members of the Finnish bands Barathrum ("Not For Wimps") and Rapture ("The Finnish Masters Of Depression"). They have a new album out, but I don't have it. Their website is at http://koti.mbnet.fi/necroth/

Gods Tower
The Turns
Metal Agen (1997)

This is the only recording I have of any type from Belarus. It has been designated by one Russian webzine as "folk-doom," and I think it must be representative of a genre alluded to on the internet as extending through Russia, Belarus, and the Ukraine. "The Turns" is spoken-sung-yelled in gruff but clear English (which is too bad) and I believe the plot is an evil raven comes to earth from heaven and wrecks bloody doom battle havoc. There is certainly a folky bent to the tunes in the album, the first ten minute track being a based on a variation of the notes: AAGADD ACBAGBB, assuming a key of C, and somehow remiscent in ambience of Myllarit's "Bitter Sorrow" on "O Voi Voi." Also impressive is the electric guitar, first one thinks "Close the hatches, Dive! Dive!" but then one realizes, "It's a WARHORN!!!" This may be the most tolerable album of the three, because its more along the lines of melodic metal or conventional rock and has a nice progressive rock overprint as well. The warhorn appears on and off in some way later in the album, and so does the theme.

This is the first of GT's albums, on a Russian label. More recently their two albums have been picked over and compiled into an album called Ebony Birds by a German company, Prophecy (http://www.prophecyproductions.de/). I fail to find a current web site, or an e-mail, but the address is:

Gods Tower c/o Victor Lapitski
PO Box 123
Gomel 246012
Belarus

and I am:
judith@gorge.net

The Columbia Gypsy