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August 29, 2008 |
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01. Gryning
02. Sång
03. Korpens Saga
04. Nedgång
05. Ur Djupet
06. Slagbröder
07. En Mäktig Här
08. Ormhäxan
09. Maktens Spira
10. Under Två Runor
11. Kvällning
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It certainly is a testament to how quickly time travels these days when you wake up one morning and realize that FINNTROLL are already on album #6. Actually, to be more accurate, album #5 if you don't count the "Trollhammaren" EP. But nevertheless, despite the fact that it still feels like just yesterday since I first discovered this band, along with fellow Finnish Folk Metal peers ENSIFERUM, MOONSORROW, and KORPIKLAANI, the cavern-dwelling ones have managed to amass quite a discography beneath their collective bone-strewn, untanned hide belt. Entitled "Ur Jordens Djup" which - and correct me if I'm wrong - translates to something along the lines of "From The Depths Of the Earth", this latest slab of trollish Metal mayhem marks yet another chapter in the saga of a band whose popularity seems to increase exponentially with every outing. Whether or not said trend continues to be the case from hereon in remains to be seen. Let's take a look shall we?
Picking up where '04's "Nattfödd" left off, FINNTROLL have weathered the departure of vocalist Wilska by welcoming new throat Vreth into the fold, as well as tweaking and tightening their signature sound mix of Folk and Metal influences with a slight change in direction which leans more towards the Melodic Death Metal end of the spectrum than it does towards anything more wholly Folk oriented. The result is essentially nothing more or less than a slightly more guitar-oriented take on the existing FINNTROLL template, keyboards used only sparingly this time around and pushed further back in the mix, the bouncy, almost comically tongue-in-cheek "trollish" melodies of yore likewise present, yet again mixed further back against more driving, meat-'n-potatoes Metal guitar riffs.
Vocally, to be honest, this new guy Vreth is virtually indistinguishable to my ears from Wilska so there's nothing going on on that front to cause this band's ship to rock. In terms of the music however, personally I feel that by placing the more melodic, folkish influences on the backburner FINNTROLL have somewhat missed the mark of what they are supposed to be all about. I mean, to reiterate, it's not such a drastic change in direction that their fanbase is going to sit up and go "Whoa! What the hell is going on here!?!" or anything. It still definitely sounds enough like FINNTROLL to be recognized as such. But speaking for myself this is the first time where even after repeated listenings nothing really hit me over the head as being particularly standout or "excellent" aside from one or two tracks, namely "En Mäktig Här", and the triumphant "Maktens Spira". Only good to very good at best, whereas previous releases have been nothing less than one amazing track after another.
It felt - and continues to feel - as though some magical ingredient is missing. To put it bluntly, this collection of songs sounds a lot to me like a collection of fairly decent DIMMU BORGIR B-sides (especially lead video track "Nedgång") that were kindly donated by Shagrath and Co. and put through the FINNTROLL production grinder if that makes any sense at all. No? Thought not. Suffice to say, this is likewise a pretty good to very good FINNTROLL album, but there is definitely a certain spark missing that I hope they can find again come the next album. If not, I fear this once original and inspired act may well be teetering at the top of a steep decline into the abyss of homogenized "sameyness" that eventually rears it's ugly head to threaten all cool Metal subgenres after one or two turns too many around the proverbial mulberry bush.
At the end of the day though, even when it's only "decent" to "pretty good", in my humble opinion FINNTROLL fare still stands several miles above most of what's being released in Metaldom these daze, so therefore I still feel comfortable granting them an "8". But only just - only just. So in the meantime I'm going to mentally slipstream this one in amongst the rest and begin the long-anticipated wait for the next one which will hopefully blow my frikkin' socks off rather than merely tug them halfway down my feet to leave them hanging there wondering what to do next.
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