A Nordic Poem

Folkearth seemed like a quite innovative idea at the time of their formation. A variety of different musicians from numerous countries working with each other in order to create some epic folk metal sounds rather promising for sure. However, I am pretty sure all hopes anyone might have had will be ruined soon after they click the play button and the project's debut, ''A Nordic Poem'' starts.

After a biased wannabe epic introduction, the music strikes you in the face like a rusty viking hammer. Everything sounds very melodic and inspired by European traditional music in a good way. However, the sound quality is very low and every song or single instrumental work is characterised by amateurism and shoddiness. The guitars are okay for the most part, but there is literally nothing original. Mostly rifts that remind of bands such as Bathory, Falkenbach etc. And that means these are rifts we have all heard again and again and have become tired of. Most bass lines are at the same level as well. There actually seem not to be musical mistakes, just an intense lack of new fresh ideas. And no, the classic catchy folk melodies can not save the rest for the music from being boring, even if the band uses as many traditional instruments as possible.

I should definitely highlight the critical role the vocals play in this album. Unfortunately, they kind of dsestroy any potential. Despite many vocal parts being simply very bad, I was actually able to spot an unneeded complexity and change of styles. In fact, what we have here are some awkward clean voices that even remind me of Alestorm at times, some epic symphonies and some brutal harsh vocals that are nothing important but a filler for many parts. All these different approaches abruptly change with each other and end up confusing the listener, rather than offering variety. Drums follow a similar pattern, with blast beats being followed by uninspired simplistic rhythms. And believe me, the terrible work that has been done with mixing and mastering only makes things worse for this record. There are even parts where it gets noisy. Maybe the only song that carries a separate identity and I do not bear weird feelings towards is the finale, '' Gaelic Valor'', which is a relieving hymn after all the aforementioned chaos.

To sum up, Folkearth's potential and good intentions are soon buried under layers and layers of amateurism and bad quality in this album. This, alongside the recycling of ideas of the old viking metal pioneers, end up making ''A Nordic Poem'' sound like an epic yet awkward fail, which has nothing to offer but restricted levels of amusement and a decent song at the end. What a pity..

Folkearth was, in a way, the most ambitious Viking metal project the world had yet seen when the band was formed back in 2004. And I’m not talking about the music being displayed. Oh no, the collective’s debut album is a terribly generic adventure that never veers from the genre’s most heavily traveled roads. I’m talking about the scope of this effort, which brought together a staggering 14 musicians from at least six different countries. And yet, despite all the people involved, A Nordic Poem displays very little of the passion, inspiration, songwriting skill, or excitement Viking metal embodies at its best.

Throughout A Nordic Poem, Folkearth sticks mostly to trudging riffs that aren’t even remotely catchy, jaunty but uninteresting folk melodies, and sleep-inducing deep-voiced singing. The album sounds like it was made by committee, with all the elements that might have given it a pulse left out for fear of offending a bandmate who isn’t wild about bombastic riffs or uptempo sections. The album is just a slow, endless stream of toothless budget-bin riffs and dull melodies shat lifelessly out of tin whistles, uillean pipes, violins, and whatever other folk instruments this collective could get its hands on. While a few of the verses (or maybe they're choruses—everything is so nondescript it's hard to tell) on this album's first half are good, despite how much the production tries to smother them, true relief doesn't arrive until 27 minutes into the album when a muscular riff comes out of nowhere. The central riff in ‘Storm Ravens Come’ is simple and satisfying, proceeding at a midpaced march and paired effectively with a melody played on what seem to be the uillean pipes. This is the only time all the instrumentalists sound passionate about what they’re doing. All other good passages, like the verses of 'Eldritch Sorcery and Faery Runes' fizzle because there's not enough passion or care to bring them roaring to life or to build them into effective atmospheric moments.

A Nordic Poem’s production matches the half-assed nature of its writing. The vocals are pushed so far back in the mix that they sound like echoes. And no, this isn’t an effect that’s used at key moments to make things more dramatic or emotionally engaging. Every single vocal line sounds like it traveled halfway through a tunnel to reach your ears. Meanwhile, the numerous acoustic folk and classical instruments are given more presence than they’re due, drowning out the guitars, drums, bass, and vocals. Y’know, the things that are supposed to be fucking crucial for a rock or metal band? Oh, and do you remember that good riff from ‘Storm Ravens Come’ I praised in the last paragraph? Well, that’s the only point in the album where the guitar has any real prominence. Everywhere else, it weakly struggles to stay afloat amid all the acoustic instruments taking up space, which, despite being louder, still sound strangely muffled and unclear. Even the occasional moments, like the main melody in 'Gryningssång', that seem to have stemmed from an actual decent idea, are rendered sterile and dull through the uninspired performances and a production job that aims for some kind of ancient mystical vibe but only succeeds at ripping away a great deal of the energy and personality the album desperately needs.

As generic in concept and lackluster in execution as this release is, the thing that bothers me above all else is the question of ‘why?’ that’s always lingering in the background. Why does this band exist when what it puts forth is ultimately no different than the output of your average mediocre Viking metal outfit? Why go to all the trouble to set up this army of a band if you’re not going to indulge yourself once you’ve got all the personnel together? Were Athelstan and Wulfstan just itching to put together a watered-down version of the mighty Forefather? “But wait,” you may be saying. “The band members probably just wanted to have fun with musical traditions they enjoy and share their passion with other like-minded folks.” Well, I considered that too and even that explanation falls flat because nobody on A Nordic Poem sounds like they enjoyed making it or even put much effort into it. The performances are as lifeless and passive as the songwriting and the knowledge that this is supposed to be the work of some massive globe-spanning collective only serves to amplify how uninspired and unnecessary the album is.

This release is so frustrating because it represents baseline Viking metal at its most unimpressive being composed by songwriters who should be above churning out this sort of mush. After all, you could make bland Viking metal with far fewer members (If you don’t believe me, you can ask Einherjer). Not only does Folkearth refrain from making any part of A Nordic Poem aggressive, epic, or soulful, the songwriters almost never succeed at even putting together an interesting melodic idea. Most of the folk melodies here sound promising at first but peter out just when they need some kind of ear-catching flourish to stick the landing. And no matter where you are in the album, the band is sure to be avoiding the exact technique or approach needed to lift the listener out of boredom. Maybe these people didn’t care about what they were doing and maybe they had different ideas of what they wanted their music to be and found themselves forced to make a bunch of compromises nobody was satisfied with. Whatever the case, though, the product of their labor is an exceptionally dull longboat voyage you’d be better off avoiding.

Well, Folkearth is a Viking/folk metal supergroup... and it suffers from the same flaws that almost any other supergroup. Those who are slightly into prog metal, where such kind of projects abound, know what I’m talking about: a bunch of gifted musicians playing together on one occasional album or so will never constitute a band, and of course this has a direct consequence on the music. To be short, Folkearth exhibits some fifteen talented musicians from different Viking and folk acts all across Europe, tons of traditional instruments (the indispensable bagpipes, violins, flutes and who knows what) and sometimes good songwriting ideas, but eventually doesn’t manage to release anything really memorable. On the other hand Finntroll consists in five drunken guys who can barely play their instruments, rely on elementary song structures and fill their albums with goofy stuff, but simply deliver amongst the best folk metal you may ever imagine. Why? Finntroll is a BAND.

Because strictly speaking there is nothing, really nothing intrinsically bad on this record. Folkearth’s music could be compared to early Einherjer’s, but with emphasis put on folk elements rather than on aggressiveness. Yes, this is soft Viking metal, but nothing wrong with that. Clean vocals largely predominate, and it’s a good thing given that the occasional non-clean passages consist in some sub-par black-metalish voice which only begs for being forgotten. As expected you’ll find lots of acoustic passages (take the beautiful intro of Horned Trolls and Mystical Folks), extensive use of choirs, and of course the aforementioned background of traditional pipes and other instruments, while a female vocalist punctually adds an eerie feeling to several songs (Eldritch Sorcery and Faery Runes, Storm Ravens Come). Atmosphere-wise, the “band” has undoubtedly succeeded: from the surprisingly original pipes-driven intro you’re instantly thrown into the Nordic wilderness from which you’ll escape only when the last notes of the orchestral/ambient outro are fading.

The problem is that after the half of the album every track begins to sound the same. When the first phase of discovery and surprise is over, you begin to understand that each song follows more or less the same pattern. Rather slow – who’ve said: boring? – strictly identical tempo (the only faster song being the opening track, Wolfsong in Moonlight), identical instruments, close vocal lines – the clean vocalist backed by the female singer, then the black-ish vocalist who pops up for a few lines – and impersonal drumming. There are blastbeats sometimes but you hardly notice them given how the drums are mixed down, which may not be a bad thing per se, but here contributes to the impersonalisation of the songs.

So yes, even if I often spin this album, I’ve never been able to consider it as anything more than background music. It may be a pity, as it carries its amount of pleasant melodies, magic and even sometimes epic feeling. But something is undoubtedly lacking. The strength of a genuine BAND.

Highlights: Wolfsong in Moonlight, Horned Trolls and Mystical Folk, Eldritch Sorcery and Faery Runes