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Lándevir > Leyendas medievales > Reviews
Lándevir - Leyendas medievales

Well-done Spanish folk metal - 82%

concertmusic, October 11th, 2006

Spanish folk metal band Landevir released the CD "Leyendas Medievales" in 2003, which represents their first full-length effort. Without being hugely familiar with the folk metal scene, this work nevertheless comes as a pleasant surprise to me, and never does make me regret picking up this CD on a whim.

There is a variety of music in the 50+ minutes here, most of it based around the 'classic' folk metal ingredients: Electric guitar, bass, and drums for the metal parts, accoustic guitar, violin, and flute for the folk piece of the equation. The different musical directions used by Landevir become apparent from the first track - which would give you an excuse to think that you picked up some epic power metal, due to the unique feel of this introductory piece, being the only track that uses atmospheric keyboards.

What follows is a good mix of material. The most common strain is straight, basic heavy metal (think early to mid-Judas Priest, instrumentally speaking) with folk influences. (this is true for more than half the tracks, such as "Un Mondo Olvidado", "Moria", "Reinas de mis Suenos", or "El Unicorn", amongst others). However, this mood is effectively changed up with a straight folk instrumental ("El Ultimo Baile"), or a folksy metal instrumental, switching moods by using a theme from classical music, namely Rossini's "Wilhelm Tell's Overture" (in addition, a passage from Mozart's Symphony No. 40 makes a cameo in the 2nd track as well).

The stand-out track on the CD has to be "Caballero de Paz", which effectively combines the various elements described above, starting as a power ballad with great vocals; slowly the folk influences creep in, and towards the end we have a straight heavy metal tune with violin and flute in support. The playing of all band members is solid overall, without being flashy - the vocals being the highlight for me; they are pleasantly in the middle of the range, and shine in places. The guitars deserve a positive special mention as well, as they carry the melodic load of most tracks (see the opening of "Moria" in particular).

It is worth noting that the overall mood is one of happy folk metal. All in all this release is a pleasant break from the everyday metal sound - if you like any folk influence, particularly Spanish folk, this will do the trick. Nicely done stuff - I look forward to the next effort by Landevir.