The Last Son of the Fjord

Nomans Land is a band that produces solid Viking metal with a Slavic touch. The songs are moderately paced, and project a nonchalant feel. The band is by no means aggressive, but not lethargic. Maintaining a median tempo throughout, the band manages a reflective, but not bitter tone. It's a challenge to describe the atmosphere and tone of these Russian Vikings.

Though devoid of folk instruments, the music seems to come foremost from a folk background. There's no blistering picking, or shredding. Nor is there any kind of rhythm, melodic pattern, or even vocal style exclusive to metal.

It's easy to imagine just about every song as being a cover of a Russian folk song. The riffs are melodic in a way that seems derived from a fiddle. The vocals a considerably deep and robust singing. Many songs are in traditional folk ¾ time, and the drumming has a flair also derived from an older style.

The album feels quickly ended, but I prefer it be too short than too long. The riffs are memorable, the songs have a solidarity about them, and the calming atmosphere is a especially enjoyable.



{Originally written for http://www.metalcrypt.com}

Yes, Slavic Vikings. The idea in itself is quite laughable, but after all there’s also a French Viking metal act (whose name I’ve forgotten and don’t care about anyway), which isn’t less stupid. Then these guys don’t seem to know how to spell the name of their band properly – it’s No Man’s Land, right? – unless there is some hidden meaning I’m not aware of. Eventually I look at the cover and see the usual drakkar, backed by titles like “The Call Of Ancestors” or “In The Skin Of A Bear”. Right, I already smell the utterly original band, and typically the kind of album you don’t even need to listen to before reviewing it – you already know the music.

Actually even if everything here is, as expected, fully clichéd, the overall work is rather enjoyable and far better than what the first impression could have suggested. The band plays Einherjer-like rather straightforward Viking metal. No bombastic ten minutes long tracks filled with keyboard and folk instruments a la Moonsorrow (there doesn’t seem to be any keyboards on this album indeed), no black influences as in Windir or Borknagar. The style isn’t closer to the fast-paced power/Viking metal of a band like Ensiferum, all the tracks here being rather mid-paced, with long instrumental guitar-driven passages consisting in the well-known repetitive and haunting Nordic melodies. The acoustic parts have not been forgotten, especially with the short eerie interlude Nomans Land. Production sounds clear while the guitars have the slightly raspy sound often going alongside with this genre.

Granted, each song doesn’t sound very different from each other, and this work is still very far from Dragons Of The North; after all Einherjer itself didn’t manage to record a second Dragons Of The North. The vocalist especially sings exclusively in clean vocals and sometimes gives the impression to recite his text more than really sing while the drummer is, to be polite, generic. But these flaws surprisingly don’t prevent the music from sounding strong and lively, and indeed if the bandmembers would have claimed hailing from Sweden or Norway I’d easily have believed them. The indispensable epic choirs are present, and well present, while the lyrics, though dealing with the beaten to death glory-to-the-brave theme, are less cheesy than feared by reading the titles.

The last good point is the band stands focused on metal rather than fill its music with traditional instruments or samples, which work fine when used well (Moonsorrow) but can become an easy way to hide your lack of genuine ideas (hum... Folkearth comes first to my mind). They only added some silly sounds of “sea crashing on the shores” as the first thirty seconds of the opening track. Useless as fuck but hell, it wouldn’t be true Viking metal without. Because yes, it is true Viking metal, and worth a listen. Don’t think this is the album you’ll endlessly spin every day during half a year, though.

Highlights: none especially, every song is pretty much of the same quality: good without being outstanding