“Finntroll’s role in the development of modern folk metal cannot be understated. Re-visiting classics like Jakens tid and Nattfödd often leads me to wonder how these guys managed to rip off my favorite folk albums before they were written. The unabashed and upfront nature of their folk qualities changed the game. That said, it’s amazing that Finntroll are still relevant. 21 years into the game, the newer blood in the genre reasonably should have surpassed them by now.” Troll down memory lane.
One of the finest in folks is finally back, and they’ve brought their tools with them.
The pain, the primer and the manbun.
The most necessary primer yet, and we didn’t even include half their records.
Giving you extra time to get prepped for a release you didn’t know you needed. You’re welcome.
“Defeated Sanity have found their own unique mixture of the cerebral and the feral, which has propelled them headlong into the hearts, minds, and collections of many a death metal fan. No matter how complex their music gets, Defeated Sanity never loses sight of the fact that they play brutal death metal.” Sanity must be defeated!
“Try as they might though, Ensiferum’s glory days seemingly sailed on without them after From Afar. 2017’s Two Paths aptly laid out the options before the band: death or glory. Without righting the ship fast, the hallowed melofolk act would scuttle all hope of escaping brand and exile. So they did the one thing guaranteed to sell nowadays: write some pirate metal.” Used YARR dealership.
“Dylan Desmond and Jesse Shreibman’s decision to make official their partnership with Erik Moggridge, the man in Aerial Ruin’s one-man dark folk band, made sense. Moggridge’s guest vocals on Mirror Reaper conveyed grief and loss on a frequency that Bell Witch couldn’t have reached alone. Stygian Bough Volume I pries those mournful dimensions wide in a symbiotic give-and-take quite unlike anything either act has produced before.” Witch in flight.
Wimps and posers, buy a sauna. The real deal is here.
“Protest the Hero couldn’t have known everything that’s happened since their last EP, Pacific Myth, in 2016. Since Rody Walker’s vocal cord scare last year. Hell, since announcing their fifth full-length in April. Protest the Hero couldn’t have known, and yet Palimpsest couldn’t be timelier. Though centering on key events in America’s early 20th century, the record reads so close to our current, woeful zeitgeist that my apophenia is still hovering at Threat Level QAnon.” Protests, man.
