Legacy of Heathens

After a promising debut with their Glory Of The Sword demo, I was looking forward to the first full-length from this band. Well, it took a while for me to get it, and even longer for me to get around to reviewing it, but after seeing numerous ignorant and biased reviews of this album, I felt like I had to do my part to set the record straight. I see a lot of people slamming this for being an Ensiferum ripoff, but that's just asinine: Ensiferum were never this good, and anyway, this is nowhere near the hyperactive Children Of Bodom fellatio that Ensiferum have always relied on.

Falchion sound a lot less Black here than they did on their demo. This is much more Melodic Death Metal fueled by catchy folk riffs. I'd say this band sounds a lot like Withering, only nobody has ever heard of that band either, more's the pity. This is an excellent, highly catchy and consistent album of riff-oriented melodeath with a strong focus on folk melodies and pagan lyrics. Falchion are not about speed, and most of this album is at a steady midpaced march. Any comparisons to Ensiferum can only be explained away as being made by those who know nothing about the Folk Metal genre whatsoever, and that's the only band they know of to compare this to.

Great riffs, strong production, and solid songwriting make this a definite must for fans of Pagan/Folk Metal. If you missed it, try and remedy that as soon as possible. This is definitely a band to look for in the future.

Originally written for www.metalcrypt.com

How people fail to see through the schemes of bands like this is beyond me. How could someone give this band any accolades for anything, except for forgery and identity theft?

This is so blatantly a rip off of Ensiferum, it's just unimaginable to me that someone would not see it and instantly be turned off. It surprising manages to sound exactly like Ensiferum - that is, if Ensiferum sucked.

I'm going to try to keep this short, because this clearly offensive release deserves little of my time.

The production is clean and the vocals are just a pinch too loud. The guitars are melodic in a forgettable way. There is some fast yet repetitive lead guitar work that ultimately is just fast for fast's sake and is otherwise pretty inane. The vocalist is average to sub-par in all aspects.

The songs are structured just like the band they counterfeited, with a even mix of slower, folky parts and fast speed metal-esque parts. The most noticeable thing that these shams failed at doing right is that somehow the drumming just manages to be weaker than shit. The drummer does the same lifeless, half-hearted stupid beat over and over again with few fills and no variations. It's hard to understand just how one succeeds in playing drums so devoid of spirit or zest.

This album instantly loses 50 points for the band trying to clone one of the greatest metal bands from their country. The only saving grace of this album is the guitar playing (mostly just the acoustic parts), which can be at times moderately catchy or fun - and is really occasionally the only thing that avoids sounding completely identical to Ensiferum.

Don’t get this unless you want to insult Ensiferum. Bands like this have no room in metal. They clutter the metal scene uselessly, and get recognition for cloning bigger bands, when other bands who are doing unique, and great stuff go unnoticed - so, don't get this unless you want to insult all of metal.

Finnish band Ensiferum managed to build quite an extensive fanbase thanks to their folky conception of Scandinavian melodic death metal and I find it rather suprising that there was no real outbreak of newly formed bands playing something in the vein of Ensiferum (at least I haven't heard about any band). Perhaps that was the reason for Falchion to be formed (by the way, the band is a side project of Juha Kuppinen, who is the accordeon player in in a really succesfull band Korpiklaani). Falchion's music is similar to the one of Ensiferum (in general you can spot elements of Scandinavian metal) with the difference of not using any other instruments than guitars, bass and the drums. All „folkiness“ is taken care of by the solo guitar that plays characteristic melodies for this kind of music on the background (necessary to say that unlike many other bands, Falchion can create an imaginative and catchy melody). Many reviewers will definitely point this out as a flaw, but I see it more as a positive thing. Especially nowadays when many new „folk/viking“ bands arise and they all base their music on well-known already many times reused formulas, Legacy Of Heathens made a really good impression on me.

Now something about the songs themselves. Both first and the second one will grab you and all you can do is look forward to the following ones. First half of the instrumental track Folk In The Golden Town is rather boring, but the second half makes up for it more than sufficiently :D It's difficult to expand on single songs, they all possess something, that will make you enjoy listening to them (actually Burning The Gates is the only weaker song …). At times it sounds blackish, sometimes you hear pagan metal, then CoB, simply really varied :-) Black Crown closes the album in a majestic way.

Well … do you like Ensiferum? Do you want to hear how you could do it differently? Get hold of Legacy Of Heathens. Despite a couple of weaker moments it's a record of a high quality.

Written for http://www.metalzone.info

Ensiferum’s debut was great, everyone into Viking/power metal must know that. Falchion, as well, must have known that while recording this piece of flatness which is called Legacy of Heathens. No, this record isn’t complete shit: it’s only a poor, very poor copy of Ensiferum’s debut.

The music on this album consists in one guitar playing basic power chords, while the other tops it with some uninteresting melody which must be meant to figure some so-called traditional tune, or plays an occasional solo. Now, add a spoon of bland harsh vocals – the band doesn’t even use the classic opposition between harsh and clean vocals, which is an easy way to create diversity though. Complete it with average double-bass driven drumming and a bass which most of the time can’t be heard, now your description of this release is over. At least we avoided the usual crappy synths: there are none on this album. Weak consolation.

There is an instrumental track (Folk in the Golden Town), but you may hardly notice it as it’s exactly the same as the other songs, the only difference being the absence of vocal lines. There are some acoustic parts which, I assume, are meant to sound folk-ish, but which just sound unoriginal. There are punctual blastbeats – who doesn’t use blastbeats nowadays? There is nothing, really nothing fascinating here, to sum up. It may be the fifth time I spin this album, I still can’t remember anything once it’s finished. Ah, wait. There is ONE song.

When one listens to Journey In The Woods one can only doubt it’s still the same band which plays. Eventually an epic, powerful, VIKING track! The recipe is unchanged, but the band sounds more inspired, cleverly switches between different melodies and acoustic breaks, and simply seems to have put a lot more effort and HEART in it than in its other works. No wonder, it’s pure Ensiferum worship, and it would actually have fit as some average bonus track on the aforementioned band’s debut, but just place a glass marble over a pile of shit and it will look like the most precious diamond.

So you may think the second part of the album will be better? Nope, as soon as the following track – which on a sidenote shows the ultimate title Swordmaster of the Dragonland, that even Rhapsody hasn’t dared to use – the listener falls back into mediocrity again. Burning the Gates, the longest song, reminds of Journey Through The Woods and may exhibit the most powerful intro of the whole album but, alas, the rest of the track doesn’t follow and just drags on and on. Without forgetting the ending track Black Crown, some pitiful attempt at playing black metal I guess. Genuine black metal already sucks most of the time, but black-ish metal always does. At least this track sounds (well, only slightly) different? Right, it sounds worse.

That’s why this release reminds me of Einherjer’s Odin Owns Ye All: one great tune surrounded by pseudo-Viking dullness. But Odin Owns Ye All and its drunken vocalist had at least made me laugh, while this only made me sleep. And Einherjer can boast a masterpiece in its discography, while I highly doubt Falchion would ever record anything worthwhile.

Highlights: Journey In The Woods