Ensiferum is a Finnish band which self-labels its genre "Heroic Folk Metal". Their first and self-named album illustrates perfectly as to why they claim that genre. The band mixes harsh and clean vocals fluidly throughout nearly every song, talking of ancient warriors and battles and telling a loose story as you progress through the tracks. Intense, upbeat guitar lines draw you in to each battle-song, inspiring a feeling truly unique to this band. "Battle Song" is a suprisingly good example of this: as the intro to the comes to an end, there is a harsh metal yell. The harsh vocalist sings the part of a storyteller, while clean vocals call out the part of the soldiers.
There are also more slow, clean songs which tell of those waiting at home, or the return, such as "Eternal Wait", which tells of an old soldier looking for respite in a world full of pain. Each song is unique, stand-alone, and offers something that none of the other songs do. This album is alone, for me, in that I added every single song to my playlist, although Ensiferum's second album "Iron" comes close.
I have never heard a band that is so soul-stirring in this manner. It reaches into the depths of your heart, not for sorrow, anger, or love, but simply to remember battles long forgotten. I am not a fan of harsh vocals, nor do I listen to that much metal. This band stirs something within me, and I would suggest to anyone that they should at least give it a try.
1 comment:
1/1 Nice job. Especially well put description of the album's themes. Good job focusing in on a two of the songs and describing them-- it makes youre review more specific and therefore more convincing.
Good job using specific language-- instead of great and awesome you describe the band's sound. However, in the future, avoid repetative descriptions. You repeat the words "harsh" and "clean".
harsh count: 4
clean: 3
In general, you want to use an adjective only once in a piece of writing. If you are repeating the adjective, you're repeating yourself. And you don't need to say the same thing more than once. Make sense? If you feel that you need to keep repeating the same word, perhaps that word isn't doing a good enough job conveying your point. Luckily, there is dictionary.com which has a thesaurus.
Good job--
April
ps- Where is your thesis? It was supposed to be highlighted... :(
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