Warchants & Fairytales

Freternia is a Swedish power metal band that plays a traditional sense of ‘power metal’ for me; in which it’s epic as hell with mighty and catchy yet sometimes intricate song structures with blaring choruses that rival bands like Rhapsody or Freedom Call. Also having one of the best guitar tones necessary for power metal worshipping something like Blind Guardian meets Sabaton, full of crunch and power with affection that rolls out with riffs that make the power metal fan oh so happy. What else is needed, the constant double bass attack that pummels throughout the entire album and of course the talented singer who can sing and hit the high notes needed. All of this adds up to make Freternia one of the better power metal bands I’ve discovered in the past several months that don’t have quite much attention towards them.

This is just their debut, yet it is such a powerful one at that. Warchants and Fairytales is one of the best I’ve found in a while, almost reminding me of Dreamland Manor by Savage Circus but this was released before so all the comparisons to that being the next successor to Imaginations From the Other Side are wrong, because I think this is what should be the real Part II. Although it isn’t necessarily the exact sound that Savage Circus took off Blind Guardian’s masterpiece and simply reproduced it almost exactly, I think this took a similar approach with having the epic and crunchy power metal that Blind Guardian had and made it with quite equal making an impression and being power metal with balls.

The songs on here follow a similar structure throughout though ranging from epic as hell orchestrated numbers like Guardians of the Night or the all out power metal assaults like Ride With the Wind. Mostly follow a similar strategy as the latter being ballsy power metal that doesn’t relent flowing like a river with relentless double bass, powerful riffs and the best of all; the lead guitar solos. Odin be praised, Freternia has produced some of the best solos I’ve heard in power metal! These guys are obviously highly talented, with each song having some sort of awesome solo; very fast for power metal and almost speed/thrash influenced reminding me of Blind Guardian meets Jag Panzer or something of the sort. The solos are the highlight of the album for me, especially when they are done with taste and not soloing for the sake of solos like some bands fall pray to; here it’s done with purpose like power metal should mixing with the double bass perfectly.

Other highlights are the great orchestrations and chorus arrangements. The lead vocalist, Pasi Humppi, does a great job capturing the listener’s ear sounding almost like a mix of a Swedish Eric Adams with a heavy accent or a bit lighter effect like Piet Sielck. The background vocals and chants are awesome, some of the best I’ve heard in power metal in a while sounding like 40 bards singing backup. It’s great that on each song it works well and doesn’t get old. There are practically no boring songs on here, even the ballad Dragonsong picks up after a rocky beginning – I didn’t think Humppi could handle the slower parts where he’s the central focus but he picks it up with some nicer parts and the song continues to pick up with great piano in the background and of course a shredding solo. Each song has something to offer as a great power metal number, the only problem here I can find is that the album rarely falls into the direction lacking diversity where some songs sound the same but in the end that is barely a fault.

Freternia has struck gold here with their debut Warchants and Fairytales, it’s a shame that they broke up after only two releases and that this really isn’t that well known. Excellent and quality power metal in the vein of Blind Guardian, Iron Savior and the such with some of the best solos in all of power metal, as well as the backup vocal orchestrations. Power metal with balls is something that is rarely found to some and it’s nice to find such a gem as this I highly recommend picking this up. Any fan of fantasy themed power metal with such power as this needs to hear this.

Oh my, how destiny treats some things with such hatred. This band sadly split up after two releases but, well, they left us with certainly two excellent works! This is the debut album and it’s just as good as the follow up. The main issue is that, unless you can find this thing lost in the catalogue or deposit of a distribution label (as it happened here), odds are that the only available sources to get it are in the magical realms of the Internet.

But, let’s see what the vault of arcane memories has for us. Warchants and Fairytales is indeed a power metal album with crunchy guitars, grandiloquent, exaggerated choruses (and I’m not joking here, some of the choruses can be seen as something possibly better than the pompous Rhapsody of Fire is capable of), double bass chaos providing the much needed powermetalesque effect plus clean and nice vocals and backing vocals with the occasional piano/keyboards sections to decorate the package.

Yes. Lyrics are all fantasy oriented. In fact, they are obscenely fantasy oriented. You have elves, kings, dragons “flying so high” and fairies bursting in the entire environment so, if you are fan of growls, black or death metal, intricate lyrics and the likes, you won’t find them here. Moreover, this album may cause you a severe headache.

Still, I find it damn good, if not superb. The musicianship exhibited along the nine tracks is something worth mentioning as none is utterly boring and lasts forever: they all go to the point. It’s like they had the perfect deck and played it right away.

There are no uneeded intros or outros, just a little instrumental/ambience part at the beginning of “Worst of Enemies” and that’s about it. Things only go up till the end (The Flame), which might be the only disappointing part as it just fades out with some storm effects as each instrument disappears from the scene. After such powerful show and exaggerated choruses, it was a bit of a let down but nothing terrible if you sum up the good things.

Did I mention several times the choruses? Hell, they are part of what makes this album worth. In few words: they rock. Simple as that. The opener, “Ride with the Wind” and “The Woods of the Elvenking” are probably the best examples of this. But the rest doesn’t stay behind.

If I want to hear power metal this is the stuff I want: great choruses, macho-style (though this could be debatable, let’s just say they sound way more manly than some other power metal attempts and better leave it there) and no feminine crap, which is also remarkable as the only ballad in the entire album (Dragonsong, how intriguing and surprising…) isn’t even as slow as one would’ve expected and it’s pretty good!

Again, it is something to thank the lack of female leads or anything related. I still cannot understand why we have to stand the typically awful ballad with your average chick trying to ‘sing’ along with the male lead in an attempt of sounding ‘emotional’.

Anyway, none of that can be found here. It’s a 44 minutes journey through several common places of fantasy but done with passion. Each chord, riff, and chorus exudes energy! Few bands seem to achieve this recently and the ones that try, hardly succeed.

The cover and general art are fine, not something to rave much about. Same applies to the lyrics. They accompany the melodies and riffage but they do not stand out.

So, to sum it up, Warchants and Fairytales is a strong mix of power metal, heaviness, excellent choruses and practically no fillers. It’s so nicely prepared that all the tracks have something to offer. Some may not have the great choruses (as it happens with the three last tracks) but each one has either well-applied keyboard moments or excellent riffs and melodic approaches, especially in the last track, so none really lacks in the consistence department.

Highly recommended if you can find it!

This is Freternia’s full-length debut after a couple of demos and a split-album with fellow Swedes Persuader. If you’ve heard “A Nightmare Story” then you pretty much know what to expect, as their style didn’t change much between the two records. For newcomers, Freternia play a speedy, crunchy brand of power metal that’s a bit different from most traditional “happy” power metal, mainly in the introduction of a slightly thrashy feel and in vocalist Pasi Humppi’s unique voice.

Apparently bassist and soon-to-be guitarist Tomas Wäppling handled the vocal chores for the band prior to this album but brought in Humppi shortly before recording. This turned out to be a wise move as Humppi does a great job here. Also, Wäppling and Humppi have largely different styles, with Humppi being much more of a traditional power metal singer (higher pitched, more of a screamer, etc.). What this allows for is a sort of duet in the songs with Humppi handling most of the verses and Wäppling chiming in on some choruses, causing some songs to sound similar to, say, Hammerfall. While Humppi does indeed handle most of the vocals, the variation is still nice, especially on songs like the opener, “Worst of Enemies”.

Some songs even have slight folk or medieval touches, such as on “Guardians of the Night”, though the emphasis is usually squarely on pure power/speed. The production can be a bit muddy at times, but for a debut from a relatively unknown power metal act it could be a lot worse. In fact, it’s a toss-up as to which Freternia disc has a better production seeing as how “A Nightmare Story” has that steely, almost mechanical production from Studio Underground. “Warchants & Fairytales” has a production which is a bit more natural-sounding. Regardless, the disc sounds good enough that you won’t really notice the production either way, which is all a band can hope for on a limited budget.

With 9 songs and clocking in at around 43-44 minutes the songs are all perfectly paced – nothing sounds drawn-out or boring. Even the semi-ballad, “Dragonsong”, is great. If you hate ballads then this one certainly won’t change your mind, but those of us who appreciate the good ones can enjoy this song. Perhaps one complaint could be the fact that a lot of the songs sound similar, and I can’t really argue against this point. Indeed, sometimes the songs do start to blend together after a while. However, this is less of a problem when we only have, as mentioned, 9 songs instead of maybe 13.

Clearly the members of Freternia are talented – the guitars are awesome, especially some of the solos. The drums are done very well, avoiding the power metal trap of degenerating into an endless double-bass disaster, and Wäppling handles the bass well (it can be heard on this album). Funny thing is, apparently Wäppling, being pretty much the driving force behind the band, didn’t like how the guitarists were playing the material he wrote for the follow-up to this album so he took over on guitars himself. Subsequently, on “A Nightmare Story” the bass sound seemed to sink further back in the mix as opposed to on this album (again, this could be the Studio Underground production). Anyways, everything is well done here and nothing quite drowns out anything else.

This album was released on Loud N Proud Records, a label which pretty much imploded shortly after. Thus, the album is starting to become a little harder to find these days, which is a shame because it’s so much better than a lot of the crap that passes for melodic power/speed metal. If you’ve never heard Freternia then I’d suggest starting with their second (and last) album, “A Nightmare Story”, which is just a little bit stronger than this release. However, I definitely recommend both of them as essential albums in any power metal collection.