As the Path Unfolds...

Crimfall, Crimfall, Crimfall… where do I even begin with explaining the glory of your debut album to the ignorant and unwashed masses? As The Path Unfolds… is eleven tracks of incredibly creative and unique folk metal. I’m a man who has listened to a good share of metal bands and I can say earnestly I have never listened to a band that sounds quite like Crimfall. I know that’s not always a positive thing to say about a band, but in this case it is. Crimfall have established themselves with a distinct and varied sound. Throughout the eleven tracks, the music ventures to many different places, with the mood, tempo and atmosphere of the album constantly changing while remaining coherent and strong.

As The Path Unfolds… starts with Neothera Awakening, a slow instrumental that builds up masterfully to the first real song: The Crown of Treason. Crimfall wastes no time showing the listener just what their capable of, and how they’re not fucking around. The Crown of Treason is a powerful song show casing both the harsh and gritty vocals of Mikko Häkkinen along with the absolutely beautiful voice of Helena Haaparanta and a fast and gorgeous violin melody supporting them. From there only more instruments and melodies are introduced across the whole album. Helena utilizes various methods of singing ranging from strong operatic vocals, melancholic dirges, and more traditional sounding Finnish singing (most noticeably in Wildfire Season). The changes and the variety make As The Path Unfolds… exciting and refreshing to listen to. There is little repetition to dampen the experience.

Personally, I generally dislike clean female vocals in metal bands. I get that bands like to contrast dark and heavily growls with a woman singing falsetto, but it’s just something I’ve never had a taste for. Certain bands like Draconian and Battlelore were practically ruined for me because of those vocals. Here with Crimfall, it’s entirely different; the enchanting voice of Helena Haaparanta is something else entirely. She is somehow one of my favorite things about this band. Her vocals are really given a chance to shine with the song Wildfire Season, and I recommend that one above any other. It’s difficult for me to place just what it is about her that’s so mesmerizing. Her voice is like a siren’s song that keeps bringing me back to listen to this album again and again and again…

But like many other things, As The Path Unfolds isn’t perfect. Songs near the end don’t have the same impact and epic feel as the first few. It sort of feels like the band exhausts themselves too quickly with the earlier songs, and isn’t left with much to work with. The tracks don’t pack the same kind of punch as they do when the album opens. This doesn’t make them bad by any means, just not as good as the early ones.
The only real song I despise Aublade. It reminds me too much of ‘Tears’ off Ensiferum’s album ‘Iron’. I personally detest that song so much it makes me want to strangle whoever wrote it; even the great and mighty Jari. Aublade doesn’t reach that level of sheer atrociousness, but it certainly isn’t pretty. For a four minute song, it just seems to drag on endlessly and is a chore to listen to. It’s a boring, tedious, and repetitive track that hurts what is otherwise a nearly perfect album.

This is such a wonderful debut and this band has so much raw potential that I would be devastated if they were to just sort of fade out of existence and be forgotten. I believe they deserve to stand alongside bands like Turisas, Finntroll, Arkona, and Ensiferum in the folk metal scene.

Crimfall are a modern folk metal band, appearing in Finland in 2007. At their core, they are a three-piece enlisting extra musicians to play a variety of instruments from drums to accordion. Interestingly enough, the group managed to recruit Moonsorrow/Finntroll member Henri ‘Trollhorn’ Sorvali for additional bass duties.

These Finns appear primarily concerned with playing power/folk metal led by female vocals with a raspy edge. However, ‘As The Path Unfolds…’ circles around symphonic metal too, creating a palatable fusion of the many melodic shades to be found in metal. Some tracks are completely devoid of folk elements such as ‘Ascension Pyre’ and ‘Aubade’, striving towards symphonic power metal, whereas ‘Wildfire Season’ and ‘Where Wandering Lands Lead’ sound influenced by Eluveitie and Turisas respectively.

Unfortunately, the primary issue with this debut is the void of fresh ideas. The guitar remains pointless for most of the music, adding nothing to move the songs forward, the folk passages are unoriginal and overall it feels passionless. This is a shame considering the opener ‘Neothera Awakening’ is an excellent, dramatic way to whet the listener’s appetite.

Crimfall remain a young band and this being their first album, there is still time for them to improve. There is nothing offensive on here, just unmemorable. The band have a lot of work to undertake if they are to prove that they have not formed in the wake of the current folk metal trend.

Originally written for www.soundshock.net

Available in stores since last March 2nd, is one of Napalm Records’ most recent bets, namely Crimfall, who with “As The Path Unfolds…” deliver a debut that really doesn’t sound like a first album.

Of all the albums coming from the Austrian label that have landed on my lap these days, I would never have imagined this one would be the pearl. At first sight, Crimfall might be taken for just another Goth or Folk metal band where the tired old beauty and the beast would be used to exhaustion, but nothing could be farther from the truth.

First and foremost because the Black Metal shrieks by Mikko Hakkinen don’t just alternate with the chants of former Tacere siren Helena Haaparanta, but both actually complement each other without going into predictable structures.

And then because, unlike what’s more usual, Helena isn’t just the “beauty” with a heavenly voice. Her vocals aren’t just mellow and do show amazing technical variety, one capable of rivaling with the best in the business, Tarja, Simone, Floor. With a great reserve of strength and energy to surprise us, Helena is unquestionably admirable.

Vocally quite irreprehensible, the album also features instrumentals that transcend boundaries, recreating a wondrous and ambitious tapestry with dots of Black, Symphonic, Power, Progressive, Folk and Viking, all very fluid, thanks to a really careful and competent composing process where the various influences integrate perfectly with each other. We may sometimes think of Epica, with traces of early Nightwish, but the best comparison is probably with the phenomenal Winterdome, not because of musical parallels, but because of the epic grandeur this album is filled with. Orchestrations are, in fact, impressive and intelligent.

Song after song, the brilliance of “As The Path Unfolds…” reveals and reaffirms itself, with no boring moments or songs that feel out of place, even if there’s a surprising amount of variety: compare the intense Power Metal melody of “Where The Waning Winds Lead” with the oriental influences of “Ascension Pyre”. But it’s when listented from the beginning to the end as a whole that the saga in “As The Path Unfolds…” really shows its fluid glory and earns a captive spot in our stereo. One single listen is certainly not enough to appease all the hunger the album awakens in us.

As a simple personal taste, the Black vocals were never my cup of tea, but from a merely stylistic and neutral standpoint, “As The Path Unfolds…” is a Epic Folk Metal masterpiece that places Finland’s Crimfall a notch above more experienced competitors, with a serious chance to stand as one of 2009’s best.

First published at www.rockheavyloud.com

Where did Crimfall come from? Well, it’s nothing more than just a side project of Jakke Viitala – an unknown ex-guitarist of the Finnish power metal crew Ad Lunam, who nevertheless successfully involves the guttural roams of Mikko Hakkinen from Twilight Ophera and the opera-like voice of Helena Haaparanta, the ex-Tacere vocalist. But who am I trying to fool, when even the simple demo recording of the three musicians, united under the name Crimfall, made me play their songs to a state of self-oblivion? Now when I think about it, no, of course we’re not talking of “just a side project”, but of something much, much beyond this.

The title of the debut album is “As The Path Unoflds…”, and the concept is easily understandable with just one look at the beautiful artwork of Kris Verwimp himself (Moonsorrow, SuidAkrA, Thyrfing) – the lonely warrior and the last survivor of a mass Viking massacre just starts his journey on a road covered with the decaying corpses of his own brothers-in-arms who fell in the battle, devoured by waves of flesh-corroding liquid fire. That pretty much depicts the mood of the album, which sounds more like a great movie soundtrack of a production with majestic battles than anything else. Musically it’s complicated to give any characterization of the genre chosen by Crimfall, but in general aspect the band offers us an enchanting mixture of symphonic metal with constant folk and power elements, and even a full vocal blend between supple soprano lines and uncompromising black metal. This asylum is fully completed with the involvement of some session musicians, enriching the music of Jakke & co with the sound of violins, cellos and accordions.

The epic introduction “Neothera Awakening” mingles immediately with the sounds of sword forgings on a background of spreading fires while Mikko and Helena change their duet roles repeatedly above the symphonic instrumental base and send us all directly in the heart of the destructive chaos. Here we find the three songs from the demo recording with altered arrangements in order to fit and complete the other songs in the most accurate way. All these extreme turns of folklore melodies and tunes with rushing guitar riffs at one point stop surprising the listeners and construct the identity of the album, making it sound even more complex, varied and diverse. The solemn orchestrations aren’t left aside also, manifesting mostly in “Non Serviam”, here is also the familiar ballad under the name “Aubade”. The rhythm section gradually rates and fastens the pulse of the battle while Crimfall drive us through the Arabian motifs of “Sun Orphaned” and the acoustic sound of “Novembre” – two of the three instrumental executions which frame the compositions respectively at the beginning, the middle and the very end of the album, putting the final bloody seal.

In short, Crimfall continues the tradition of their countrymen and enter directly in the front ranks of the numerous bands, coming from the Land of the thousand lakes. But somehow I don’t even believe they’ll become one of the many unknown warriors, not after such an impressive start as “As The path Unfolds…” – therefore I sincerely hope for them to go on their own way with the same ambitions and total professional approach, and if this really happens, the result will be at least grandiose.