Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Album Review: Твердь - Вслед за Солнцеворотом

Tverd - Follow the Sun's Way

Artist: Твердь (Tverd) [Russia]
Album Title: Вслед за Солнцеворотом (Follow the Sun's Way)
Record Label: CD-Maximum (Russia)
Released: 2008 (October)

2008 saw many well-regarded pagan metal releases from bands on international metal labels, such as Arkona's Ot Serdtsa K Nebu (re-release), Equilibrium's Sagas, Týr's Land, and Eluveitie's Slania. An album that easily ranks among these, but is probably destined to be overlooked, is the excellent debut album by Russia's Tverd (or, more properly romanized, Tverd'). Unfortunately, like Alkonost or Butterfly Temple, Tverd doesn't have international distribution, but they deserve to.

Tverd is the band that Pagan Reign guitarist/traditional instrument-player Vetrodar began after that band broke up in mid-2007. Pagan Reign was a great band that seemed to be heading in an awesome direction with their final album, 2006's Tverd' (aka Ancient Fortress), with its inclusion of many traditional folk instruments, and many of us were grief-stricken when we found out they were no longer together. A planned acoustic album, apparently only featuring founding member Orey, never appeared. But then, suddenly, this new band Tverd appeared, and, due to the amount of Pagan Reign songwriting that had been done by Vetrodar, Tverd sounds rather similar to the final Pagan Reign album, except with different vocals. In fact, according to the insert notes (thankfully included in English), Tverd is meant to be a natural progression of Pagan Reign. Excellent!

Now, how about the actual album? Well, as I mentioned, the major departure from Pagan Reign is in the vocal department. Tverd has three vocalists. The harsh vocals are handled by Vetrodar, but they are not featured very prominently. Instead, many of the vocals are done in an operatic style (by Alexandr Ivanov) and folk style (by Svetlana Lebedeva). Some don't like the operatic vocals of Alexandr Ivanov, but I think they have a tendency to grow on a person. He has a great voice and range, and I think his vocal style fits the style of music. Svetlana Lebedeva is stated in the insert to do folk and academic opera style vocals, but I don't really hear the opera style. She does great folk-style vocals, though, and handles the lead vocals on Масленица Широкая ("Wide Maslenitsa") and the traditional На Чужую Сторонушку ("To the Foreign Land"). In other songs, she harmonizes beautifully with Alexandr.

Vetrodar plays guitar and a wide array of traditional instruments, including various flute and reed instruments, bagpipes, zhaleyka, balalaika, domra, and mandolin. There are several sections where you'll only hear the traditional instruments (along with acoustic guitar), including on the two instrumental pieces, but for the most part the traditional instruments are omnipresent, and they mix well with the metal elements. The songwriting on Follow the Sun's Way is top-notch all-around, and everything is well-played. The rest of the band is guitarist and gusli-player Ratibor, bassist Sigurd, and drummer Demosthen (another former Pagan Reign member). The lyrics are fairly typical of Russian pagan metal bands (battles, traditions, pro-Russian themes, nature, Slavic gods, etc.).

Follow the Sun's Way is a pretty heavy album, with crunchy guitar riffs, the occasional guitar solo, and some great and varied drumming, but it's made more accessible by the clean vocals and the presence of traditional instruments. Some people avoided Pagan Reign because of Orey's vocals (which I greatly enjoyed), but Tverd should give them no such excuses. Follow the Sun's Way is a pretty unique album and will probably not appeal to everyone, but in my opinion it's definitely one of the best you'll hear this year, if you can find it.

There are many highlights on this album, but the centerpiece is Богатырская Застава ("The Bogatyr’s Gates"), which is described as an "epic metal cantata." While I wouldn't go so far as to call it a cantata, this eight-and-a-half minute song is certainly epic. Alexandr Ivanov gives his best performance on this song, which tests the high end of his range (which, thankfully, never approaches Rob Halford territory; Ivanov is an operatic tenor). The songwriting on this piece is complex, and has a quality of Russian classical music. There's a beautiful acoustic part near the end, with some great vocal harmonizing, which continues as the song turns to metal again for a brief time until its abrupt ending.

The final song on the album, the instrumental (with the exception of Svetlana's wordless vocals) Печаль Земли Русской (Калинов Мост) ["Russian Land’s Sorrow (Kalinov’s Bridge)"], is the only one that breaks the pleasant folk metal mold that the rest of the album falls into. It does this rather harshly towards the end with the addition (or, in my opinion, intrusion) of heavy electronic elements. The first five minutes are beautiful, reminding me of the final, instrumental, song on Pagan Reign's Tverd', but then it unexpectedly turns into something akin to a track from Aphex Twin's Drukqs, and not one of the beautiful piano or ambient pieces. This jarring and annoying ending is the only negative I can find on Follow the Sun's Way, and I'm sure there was a reason for its inclusion, but I would have rather they not bothered with it.

Overall, this debut album from Tverd is an awesome release, and, at a little over an hour, it's a good length. It's ambitious to combine the operatic elements with folk and metal, but Tverd does a great job, and in the process have created one of the essential pagan metal albums of 2008. Highly recommended.

Album Review: Hellveto - Neoheresy

Hellveto - Neoheresy

Artist: Hellveto (Poland)
Album Title: Neoheresy
Record Label: Pulverised Records (Singapore)
Released: 2008 (October)

One-man orchestral pagan metal project Hellveto is known for being prolific, having released several albums (and compilations, EP's, and demo reissues) since his proper debut album, Autumnal Night, in 2002. It's difficult to make any sense of the Hellveto discography, since there have been so many reissues and out-of-order album releases that one practically needs to become a Hellveto scholar in order to sort through them. Between 2005 and the end of 2007, there were ten full-length Hellveto releases, though most of the material had been recorded prior to 2005 and is made up of reissued demos, EP's, and albums that had not yet been given proper releases. Although this had the unfortunate effect of devaluing his music somewhat, these were years of feasting for Hellveto fans such as myself. Each song on each album is epic and dense, with (sampled or synthesized) orchestral and occasional choral elements weaving within the guitar, bass, drums, and harsh vocals. It's gorgeous and breathtaking music, though it often takes several listens for each piece of music to stand out from the others due to the often-singular sound that Hellveto employs.

There have been occasional wrinkles to the so-called "Hellveto formula," as well as a subtle progression over the years. Beginning with 2004's In Arms of Kurpian Phantom, L.O.N. (the moniker of the man behind Hellveto) began using live drums instead of the weak drum machine sounds used on earlier material. On 2005's Klatwa, the rather-flat sound of earlier releases was greatly improved, and material recorded beginning with that release use more panning and depth. On 2006's In the Glory of Heroes, Hellveto briefly experimented with distorted vocals similar to the ones Burzum employed on Filosofem.

On Neoheresy there is yet another large improvement to the production. The overall sound is "punchier" and more powerful than ever before. Though on most releases the guitars and drums are given generally the same levels as the synth and orchestral elements (resulting in a more classical sound than metal), on Neoheresy the metal elements are emphasized. The vocals are still somewhat buried, but the drums, bass, and guitar are clearly audible, while the orchestral and choral elements take a more supporting role than before. They're certainly there, and there's still an incredible amount of detail in the compositions, but you have to listen a little harder to be able to hear those details. Because of this, Neoheresy works on at least two different levels: it's immediately gratifying compared to most Hellveto works, but there's still that depth to be discovered upon repeat listens. Nice bits of choral vocal lines appear where you didn't notice them earlier, you begin to notice the classical-sounding guitar behind the bombastic drums and power chords, etc. There's a seemingly unlimited musical treasure to be unearthed within the dense framework of each of the six songs on Neoheresy, which has been the case with Hellveto for the last several years and over a dozen releases.

Neoheresy is also the only Hellveto release to appear in 2008, which practically feels like a drought when compared to the past few years. Upon listening to the final result, which is a wonderful (if brief) album, it's obvious that L.O.N. spent a great amount of time working on this album. A few tracks from these sessions appeared on last year's Crusade EP (packaged together with the reissue of Autumnal Night), but those songs, production-wise, sound nowhere near as good as the six that appear on Neoheresy do. L.O.N. is a master of his craft, an isolated genius of a composer and musician that continues to work on his own terms. I feel that, even if there weren't an audience to receive this music (which there is, and it has been growing), Hellveto would still be recording and releasing this stuff on CD-R or something, just as he was back in 2003. Which is not to say that L.O.N. doesn't care about his audience. The fact that he has generously reissued or unearthed so much older material via his own Ritual Execution label or others proves that he's aware of the demand for his music. And he released a video for "Taran," the track that begins this album, through the official Hellveto website.

It seems useless to do a track-by-track analysis of Neoheresy, but I will mention that the songs that begin and end the album, "Taran" and "Sredniowieczna Egzekucja," are brilliant bookends. "Taran" is a driving, addicting, and even catchy piece of music, beginning the album with the sound of guitar and the powerful sound of horses' hooves. Then it evolves and builds gradually throughout its almost-seven minute running time. "Sredniowieczna Egzekucja" includes some beautiful choral moments, piano, blastbeats, and some great melodies to bring the album to a satisfying conclusion. It's the best Hellveto album-ending song since "....Ktos Ty?" from Zmierzch.

Overall, the compositions are simpler and more straightforward than on past releases, but I think Hellveto fans will be happy with this one. Other than the production, it's certainly no great leap forward, but it's a very solid album that, in my opinion at least, stands proudly among the best Hellveto has released. It also creates an excellent starting point for people who want to give Hellveto a try but are intimidated by the size of the discography. It appears, at least by the evidence presented within Neoheresy, that L.O.N. is still full of creative energy and shows no sign of becoming weary of creating this rich and epic music. And now that releases have slowed down to a normal pace, fans like myself can finally give each new album the attention it deserves. Those who dislike the unique "orchestral pagan black metal" sound of Hellveto probably won't be won over by Neoheresy, but, then again, maybe they will. It's arguably the most accessible of his releases, and, given the distribution Pulverised has, it should gain this gem of a project some greatly-deserved recognition from the larger metal underground community.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Album Review: Kroda - Fimbulvinter

Крода - Fimbulvinter

Artist: Крода (Kroda) [Ukraine]
Album Title: Похорон Сонця (Fimbulvinter)
Record Label: Hammermark Art (Germany)
Released: 2007

Kroda has become such a widely hailed pagan/folk metal band that it's kind of hard to believe they've only been a part of the scene since 2004's Cry To Me, River... While some bands build up a following before releasing their first album (through touring, festivals, etc.), Kroda never did a live show until 2007. Therefore, they quite literally appeared out of nowhere. It didn't take them too long to gain notice from pagan metal fans, because Cry To Me, River..., though a debut release (I don't think there was even a Kroda demo), was an incredibly mature album and one that holds up well even after repeated listens over the last few years. Not ones to stand still, the band followed it up with an awesome second album, Towards the Firmaments Verge of Life, in 2005. Then, amazingly, they produced their third, and most recent studio album, Fimbulvinter, at the beginning of 2007. While it's not amazing that a band would produce three albums in that amount of time, it's the quality and near-perfection of each album that is so difficult to believe. Oh, and they released two split CD's during the periods between album releases, and both split releases are great EP's in their own right.

I resisted "reviewing" this album for a long time, for one thing because I don't feel that I have anything valuable to say about it that hasn't already been said by several other, more talented, writers. But I managed to write about my other favorite albums of 2007 already, and Kroda just released a great live disc, Live In Lemberg, so it felt like the right time.

Fimbulvinter begins with the sound of cold wind, appropriately enough considering the concept of the album. The word Fimbulvinter, which means "the great winter," refers to the long winter that will take place before Ragnarök. Therefore Fimbulvinter, the album, is also long and cold. The sunny folk melodies of the previous two albums are replaced by darker folk melodies on Fimbulvinter, though there's certainly still a significant amount of flute and mouth harp to be heard. Some fans have complained about the somewhat-diminished folk presence on Fimbulvinter, but I find it appropriate to the subject matter. I don't even think it's diminished all that much; it just doesn't stand out from the rest of the music as much as on other Kroda albums.

So where was I? Oh, yes, the sound of cold wind beginning the album. After about 25 seconds, the music itself begins, with a theme played on guitar that will become the central theme for the opening track, "The Beginning of Winter Night of Oskorei," which clocks in at almost 12 minutes. Incidentally, there are only five tracks on this album, but the shortest is just under 9 minutes long, and the album itself is a healthy 55 minutes in length. The album opens on an epic note, and at first it may seem that there is no way that the album can sustain such momentum, but it does. Man oh man, does it ever. Each song on this album is excellent, like an epic in itself. The music is densely woven yet blistering, and Eisenslav's voice is in fine form. He growls, shrieks, and howls through his well-written lyrics (which are translated into English in the booklet), his voice full of fire and venom. Eisenslav has one of my favorite black metal voices, and Fimbulvinter may be his best performance.

But each song doesn't just blast along at full-speed at all times. There are breaks within each song where the listener can catch his or her breath while being treated to some lovely (though not so lovely that they ruin the desolate and cold atmosphere of the songs) flute parts, which are backed by atmospheric synths, strummed guitar, and sound effects. Sometimes you can hear sampled (or synthesized?) choirs and folk vocals during these parts. But Kroda doesn't let you get too comfortable for too long, and will launch back into a full-scale metal assault, sometimes with blastbeats and fast tremolo-picked riffs. But obviously their goal isn't to simply pummel the listener. Any metal band can do that. They are more methodical than that. Every part has its purpose, and its the contrasts that makes this album, like any Kroda album, something that transcends metal. If I were forced to make a case that extreme metal has just as much right to be considered fine musical art as any other style of music, I would play this album in its entirety before even bothering to make any arguments.

Kroda has also included, as usual, some lovely packaging to accompany the music. If you have any other Kroda albums, you'll sort of know what to expect, except this time everything is covered in snow. In fact, the landscape on the cover is the same location as the landscape on the cover of Cry To Me, River..., except in a different season.

Following my personal favorite Kroda track, "Funeral of the Sun," is a cover of Branikald's "A Stormride." I don't usually like the idea of bands including cover songs on their albums, much less closing the album with one, but Kroda has made this song their own. I'm not familiar with the original, but I am familiar with Branikald of the mid-90's (pre-dating Blazebirth Hall's more controversial era), and it doesn't sound at all like this. The lyrics and the overall sound fit well with the rest of the album, and if the insert didn't tell me it was a cover song, there's no way I would have guessed. It's just another great Kroda track.

I don't need to tell most pagan metal fans to buy this album. Most will already be familiar with Kroda, and out of that group, there are many who are already fans. But if, by some chance, you haven't heard these guys, they're definitely one of the essential bands in pagan metal, so check them out. Fimbulvinter is one of the great metal albums of 2007, and it shouldn't be missed.