“For fans of Turisas, Finntroll and Nightwish,” the advertisement read. How could I possibly pass that up? I’m definitely a fan of Turisas and Finntroll, though, Nightwish I’ve pretty much been able to do without—sans diva or not. But reading that tagline, I wondered how any band could actually manage to blend these three bands into one cohesive whole. “No,” I thought to myself, “it’s really not possible to do in a convincing manner.” Apparently, and to my great dissatisfaction, I was wrong.
Labels
Stratovarius – Polaris
Stratovarius are serious veterans of good ol’ fashioned Euro Power Metal and despite the never-ending rush of silliness that surrounded this band for roughly the last three years–they have still managed to put out an album of middling quality in time. A record of middling quality, you say? Why yes, says I. All Stratovarius records are of middling quality, some are just more middling than others. Some say that this band is the pinnacle of all Finnish power metal bands–but if one listens to Polaris they’d never know that.
Fejd – Storm Review
Napalm Records has long been one of my favorite labels, putting out a lot of bands that I really dig (especially the Vintersorg/Otyg/Fission stuff), and they’ve recently taken a hard dive into folk metal and other genres more of this type. So I wasn’t surprised, but I was particularly excited, when I read that Sweden’s Fejd (pronounced like the English word “fade”) had been signed to Napalm as I had earlier discovered their demos which had been put up for free at the Free Metal Albums blog. I had discovered the demo “I en tid som var…” and had gotten really excited the band, and was frankly surprised that they hadn’t been picked up by anyone. So as you can suspect from this introduction, I was eagerly anticipating Storm—the band’s newest release.
SPV is toast?
Well, shit. Apparently SPV’s business model, i.e., sign bands after their prime, isn’t working out so hot for them! Hopefully they’ll make it out of the German equivalent of chapter 11 just fine, but I somehow doubt it. These guys need to sign new bands, and I think it’s a sign of weak A&R that […]
Amorphis – Skyforger Review
Amorphis is easily one of my favorite bands producing metal in the 2000s. Over the last few years I’ve seen a lot of the bands that I really got into when I was a young, impressionable metal guy start to get more and more popular as they got picked up by bigger labels, got put out on the market, and as metal got cool again (who’da thunk it?)–bands like Opeth, Enslaved, Amon Amarth and others. Amorphis, however, had fallen off my radar, and I think a lot of people’s radars, before they got themselves a new vocalist. A man of small stature, and huge personality and voice: Tomi Joutsen. For whatever reason, this breathed life into the venerable, and quite excellent, band taking them out of their temporary lull and pushing them to the forefront with the bands putting out the best modern metal has to offer.
