THYRFING - Vansinnesvisor
September 30, 2002, 21 years ago
(Hammerheart)
Picture Finntroll, Rammstein, In Extremo and Paradise Lost, each in full regalia, clashing steel and might on some hard frozen bloody knoll, and you begin to get the picture these pagan-stompers paint. Vansinnesvisor is sung almost entirely in Swedish, but Thomas Vaananen's vocals are so venomously roared out, you really don't notice or care, given the triumphant folk metal grooves crashing around him and the thick, warm production values that sound like Paradise Lost or Sentenced or new Metallica. The music is pretty much shaggy, mid-paced metal of the long-beard variety, big boomy drums and open hi-hats powering heroic riffs and tenderizing fiddles (season to taste only) down a battle-worn path that recalls the Viking phase of our old friend Quorthon, but with good sound, more riffs, more mead! Bonus: amazing booklet with really cool band photos, Thomas looking like the creature in the night from the black Sabbath lagoon covered in wiseblood looking for some deliverance. I'd heartily give up an 8.5, 9, if the lyrics were in English, because fact is, this pulls the same emotional strings as new Amorphis while retaining the heaviness of old Amorphis, each and every folky bit adding logically and seamlessly to an experience that is near relentlessly about churning, passionate riffs.
