Eastern Europe seems to swarm with Slavic Pagan Metal acts, from renowned bands such as Drudkh to more obscure settings trying to fight their way through. Paganland is of the latter kind, hailing from Ukraine, taking pride in their ancestry and delivering it into songs from lands of freedom and epic melodies. Founded in 1997 […]

Copenhagen’s Huldre are relative newcomers on the folk metal scene, having released their self-financed debut “Intet Menneskebarn” on the summer solstice of last year, a date calculated to correspond with their brand of traditional revelry. The band state their mission to be the creation of music which places equal emphasis on both melodic metal and […]

My encounters with German folk-metallers Finsterforst in the past have been brief and unfulfilling, consisting of a couple of aborted attempts to listen to tracks from their previous record “…zum Tode hin” before dismissing them as a mediocre Moonsorrow knock-off. As a result, I couldn’t have been more pleasantly surprised when I sat down to listen […]

“Better Meddle wi’ the De’il than the Bairns O’ Falkirk!” Hailing from Falkirk in my own Scotland, Cnoc an Tursa’s arrival on the UK metal scene with their debut album The Giants of Auld- released early next year on Candlelight – comes at an appropriate juncture. National identity is an issue that’s always close to the […]

I’ve been keeping one eye on North Carolina’s Aether Realm and their progress towards their debut album for a few months now, they having established themselves as one of the most competent and interesting of second-generation North American folk metal acts taking their cues from Scandinavia. In addition to their music, Aether Realm are noticeable […]

It’s not often that you find an artist so completely and transparently indebted to a single older act as Italy’s Bloodshed Walhalla, but let there be no mistake about it; Drakhen, Bloodshed Walhalla’s sole member, is perhaps the biggest Bathory fan currently alive. Having started out in 2006 as a tribute act to the Swedish […]

Written by Andrew. When I made up my mind to write this retrospective, I had little idea what to expect of “Unsung Heroes.” Ensiferum played their cards pretty close to their chests in the weeks leading up to its release, putting two songs online (“In My Sword I Trust” and “Burning Leaves,” both of which […]

From the cold Austrian alps blows in this two-track EP that serves as a ghostly fingerprint in the realm of Germanic Folklore.  Though the artists take a separate approach towards finding the spirit of the featured songs of the same name, both achieve an element of surrealism and ancient mysticism.  As a separate entity however, […]

This review is long overdue to say the least, and in keeping with that line of thought, this very release in itself celebrates a young career that was sadly far too short for the intelligence and musical prowess found within their music.  Soulsearch was a project that hailed from Salzburg, Austria and took form in […]

Varg Vikernes has been really busy after finally being released from that arguably unjust 16 years spent in a Norwegian prison. After releasing Belus and Fallen as well as a few compilation albums it is now time for a drastic turn in Umskiptar which means literally metamorphoses or change in Old Norse. Umskiptar is quite […]