Artist: Finntroll
Label: Century Media
Release: 2010
Length: 45:44
Rating: 3.5/5
Trolls are the creatures that road planners in Iceland always consult on how, where and when to build a road. Maybe that’s exactly why Iceland is an untouched pearl of nature on this long-since-evaporated planet. And Fintroll are the band that brought “trollism” into heavy metal. Trolls are cheeky, goofy creatures who also like to pull the odd “educational” or “anti-Christian” prank when you step on their tail. They see you, but you don’t see them. So are they supposed to be fiction? To most followers of the Christian faith, certainly.
With the new album, Fintroll keep deepening the groove they defined on its predecessor “Ur Jordens Djup”. As our esteemed RockLine colleague Rok Klemše boldly argued in his review of “Ur Jordens Djup” (2007) HERE, the new Fintroll are increasingly busy working in the war paint of extreme metal (black metal), as well as in material that leans more and more on lively symphonic arrangements (riding on the wings of the keyboards). To that end, Fintroll have even folded an extra keyboardist into the lineup. That’s Aleksi “Virta” Virta, who since 2005 had helped the band exclusively on the live stage. The band also leans harder on classic riffs and rhythms of the kind typical of acts like their countrymen Ensiferum. “Nifelvind” (the word could be translated as “wind from hell” or “hellish wind”) digs further into the path its predecessor started. The element of goofy cheekiness and honest-to-goodness clowning, which was so refreshing on a proper “trollmetal” record like “Jalktens Tid” (2001), keeps fading. Fintroll established a real musical blend marked by traditional folk melodies and strictly full-throttle metal riffs, with a solid dose of traditional humppa rhythms (“humppa” is the Finnish polka), and wrapped it all up in honest fun, where the odd waft of alcohol fumes from the mouths of staggering protagonists would often boil over. On the last two records, there’s less and less of that.
Solsagan is an extreme folk metal assault that barely holds onto that direction apart from its hellish tempo, while the extreme twitching in the pre-chorus brings an ominous gust familiar above all from the language of black metal. But the chorus will knock any true folk metal fan out of their clothes. It carries a genuinely authentic, goofy chant of a tribal bash hidden in the deepest corner of the Finnish spruce forests on the border between taiga and tundra, which the stinking, sickly foot of the Roman Catholic brood has never managed to reach. A better epic full of bombast and extreme metal aggression is not something you could wish for in the opening stretch of a record. As far as this track goes, it works so brilliantly in combining a captured “beer bash” atmosphere with assault-style punch that it could open every single show the band plays from now on. Every show of every future tour, too (the way Aces High by the forefathers Iron Maiden should do, no question). A track like I Tradens Sang is an earthquake, where the band literally roasts its victims in a hellish cauldron, since in the aggressive spirit it delivers, it comes right up to the edge of the extreme metal genres (black metal). The winning combination of a mid-tempo pace in the follow-up, backed by double bass drum pedals, creates a real doom-laden crunch and recalls the older face of Fintroll’s music.
Often, in the moments when symphonic keyboard arrangements are in full bloom, the riffing ducks down a bit in the (otherwise excellent) production, as happens in the track Tiden Utan Tid. Galgasang is an acoustic track of banjo arrangements with folk melodies that work more as a lament than as traditional Fintroll clowning. Its role is mainly to take the pressure off the “marching, full-throttle” run of our dear troll-lovers in the second half of the album. The track Mot Skuggornas Varld once again unfurls the famous Fintroll sails. It has a dancing humppa rhythm that will push blood through your veins at a higher flow per second. Fintroll classicism. The sought-after and demanded standard of the band. A superb blend of mocking fun and sneaky malice. Under Bergets Rot, meanwhile, shows moves toward the metal traits of their pagan brothers Ensiferum, only Fintroll don’t press the gas pedal quite so hard – distant parallels can be found with Children Of Bodom,. The latter are among the chief culprits who were first to show that the extremely melodic principle in metal can carry growl vocals very well indeed. And it carries them even more inspiredly and excitingly, of course, in the evolutionarily expanded and upgraded approach of folk metal, such as we meet in Fintroll’s music.
However I turn this album over and pick it apart under the magnifying glass, the unique collision of razor-sharp mocking malice and strict metal pummeling remains the band’s trademark, and it places the album “Nifelwind” in a special spot on the scene of an ever-stronger folk metal, which has by now gained clearly defined contours over a good decade of existence. Drap is probably the track we all waited for on the new album, in that regard. If you don’t burst out laughing earlier, you certainly will when the band fills the chosen bridge (the calming of the song) with croaking frogs, and then with the droll closing motif of the album, where the point of the track is led by a main motif played on a horn.
With the new album, Fintroll are getting more and more symphonic, wicked and atmospheric, and keyboards carry more and more weight in the sound. They’re no longer so into jokes and the rough-and-tumble stumbling of drunken troll brutes. The cheekiness is certainly still there, but it doesn’t stand out on the album. It’s overtaken by a measure of seriousness, or if I may use the term, maturity of arrangement, which in its boldness and experimenting does pin a few parallels with other bands on the new Fintroll, such as Ensiferum or Moonsorrow (the track Fornfamnad). Still, even with “Nifelvind” the band remains a one-of-a-kind factor on the folk metal scene. Along with weaving in an even higher level of listenability, at the expense of adding rich keyboard arrangements, the extreme vocals also pick up more melodic accents. In sum, “Nifelvind” is an excellent new Fintroll folk metal album. Not as fun and exciting, but superbly arranged and, in its lead melodies and live atmosphere, skillfully polished. With it the band takes a new developmental step in the transformation of its expressive core and artistic maturing, one that isn’t so striking. It’s fairly predictable and, at the same time, very good.
Lineup
Vreth – vocals
Skrymer – guitar, backing vocals
Routa – guitar
Trollhorn – keyboards, acoustic guitar, banjo, harmonica, backing vocals
Virta – keyboards, backing vocals
Tundra – bass guitar, backing vocals
Beast Dominator – drums, percussion, backing vocals
Production
Fintroll
Tracklist
1. Blodmarsch (Intro) (2:11)
2. Solsagan (4:31)
3. Den frusna munnen (4:04)
4. Ett norrskensdåd (3:34)
5. I trädens sång (3:43)
6. Tiden utan tid (4:55)
7. Galgasång (3:44)
8. Mot skuggornas värld (4:43)
9. Under bergets rot (3:28)
10. Fornfamnad (3:42)
11. Dråp (7:00)
