Third Age of the Sun

How do you react after a successful album has brought you international recognition? While some others bands would quickly churn out more of the same to content their new crowd of hard-gained followers, credit must be given to Battlelore for having chosen the courageous option of changing their sound, with the non-negligible risk of disappointing said followers. And this was what, exactly, happened – which, in retrospect, is hardly surprising, as Third Age of the Sun ended up being a mixed bag of good intentions and questionable achievements from a still non totally mature act.

The most obvious difference between this album and its predecessors is the drastic slowing down of the overall pace, with the disappearance of the frantic, upbeat numbers which thus far had constituted roughly half of the band's output – even the "fun" song of the lot, Touch of Green and Gold, sounds unexpectedly wise. In parallel, they've largely toned down their power metal influences, to concentrate on a mid-tempo melodeath backbone, even leaning towards metalcore when chugging riffs become predominant. The orchestrations have become wiser, too; forget about the former loudly mixed, and often approximative, keyboard melodies; the time has come for – relative – subtlety, while the bank of sounds now incorporates touches of grand piano, (likely synthetic) harps and (real) flutes.

Let's admit that, for a while, the new recipe works. The opener Usvainen Rhûn/Storm of the Blades, with its atmospheric intro narrated in Finnish and with the unpredictably bestial guitars which follow, must have indeed perplexed anyone who awaited a direct sequel to Sword's Song, but the epic factor remained high enough for the listener not to be untimely turned away. Both Ghân of the Woods and the majestic semi-ballad Gwaith-i-Mírdain, pinnacle of the work, mostly repose on Kaisa Jouhki's elven voice; album after album she's been consolidating her place as Battlelore's true driving force, slowly taking more and more of the vocal duties; the serene and classy performances she delivers on these songs remain amongst her very best, all albums included, and that's saying something. Then... the first cracks appear.

Because composing an entire album of mid-tempo epic melodeath anthems would have required solid songwriting skills to prevent the almost inevitable monotony, and those skills were yet clearly missing. Thus the songs progressively blend to become interchangeable, especially since there are too many tracks. Granted, they're all short – none of them even reaches the five-minutes mark – however leaving off a couple of them would have made the whole (elven) cake lighter to digest, while keeping it to a honest size of around forty minutes. Let's say... Gollum squeals, as fitting as they are to the whole Middle-Earth concept, have always been of dubious aesthetic value, and only someone having reached the supreme level of Tolkien intoxication could have thought it wouldn't be a terrible idea to use them over an entire song - in other words, only Battlelore could.

The male vocals are another hit-or-miss. The departure of Patrik Mennander was probably the most important line-up change our Middle-Earthian Finns had to deal with, considering how vital he was to their early identity, both in the studio and on the stage. Not to say he was irreplaceable; later, his successor Tomi Mykkänen will largely prove it wasn't the case. Still back then this same Mykkänen, instead of safely developing his own personal growling style, was trying so hard to emulate the fury of the Raging Goblin his performance sounded very unnatural, when not downright laughable. This isn't much of an issue on the tracks where he isn't predominant, but each time he takes the leading part you can be sure it soon turns into another unpleasant vocal muddle.

Oh, the little orange thing for sure had its moments, even past the first three songs. The occasional well-crafted hook here. Some unanticipated feral riff there. Another crystalline piano lick. Kaisa Jouhki. That was already enough to prevent a disaster. Battlelore were slowly growing up, but first had to painfully make it all throughout their puberty crisis.

Highlights: Ghân of the Woods; Gwaith-i-Mírdain.

I've often wondered how much power metal is meant to be a "fun" style of music. I mean, we all know it's pretty hard to take some of the excesses of the style seriously - grown men singing about epic battles in fantasy kingdoms with unusual names is certainly stretching credibility to an extent - but most bands seem to take themselves relatively seriously. Something tells me that Battlelore doesn't.

"Third Age of the Sun" is my first encounter with these Finnish Tolkien-philes, and I may as well admit up front that I came across the album as the result of wondering what else there was which sounded like Blind Guardian's epics. Well, needless to say, Battlelore are just as Tolkien obsessed as Hansi and his friends - possibly moreso, since they only sing about those mythical lands.

Stylistically, most of this album features duets between operatic female vocals and growled male vocals, two styles deployed to maximum effect. Tolkien, of course, had a lot of dwarves and trolls and the like in his mythology, so the growls are a perfect representation of these. The clean female vocals generally take a more elven role.

I'm sure this album could be better. In a musical sense, a couple more solos might be a worthwhile inclusion, but what you get here is a very tight album overall. A real standout is "Of Orcs and Elves", which features some catchy riffs and sublime interplay between the two vocalists. "Dwimmerlaik", the final song of the bonus tracks, is also well worth a listen.

Obviously, "Third Age of the Sun" isn't for everyone. The over-the-top fantasy themes will put a lot of people off, and the lack of guitar solos is mentioned in another review here as a negative. Personally, I don't mind the fantasy stuff and I'd argue that a pulling-out-the-stops guitar solo in the middle of one of these songs would just be a pointless display of skill - when the real focus here is on the cumulative ability of the band to put out a strong set of songs. That's perhaps the key for me - unlike so much of this style, each song stands up by itself. You don't have to have a spare 90 minutes to listen to an entire concept album here - one song here and there will work just as well. That might be a reflection of the power of the MP3 player, of course...

The bottom line for me is this: Are there better bands out there? You bet your life. I don't rate these guys as superior to Blind Guardian for example, and there are a few others out there too if I could only get my brain in gear. That said, am I going to go out of my way to get my hands on more music by this outfit? Again, you bet your life.

Tolkien fans rejoice! The Finnish Battlelore has risen with a new CD Third Age of the Sun! This is progressive metal in the vein of early Opeth and Amorphis and features a blend of clean female vocals and extreme male vocals, as well as tons of layering. And, as Dave Wyndorf might call it, it is all "hobbit crap"!

First, the track I hated "Gollum's Cry". It matches the slow entry "Usvainen Rhun" and is very nice musically. However, listening to the vocals croaking and squeaking in imitation of Gollum makes me want to cut my ears off. I know, it's supposed to be artistic, so maybe it's just me and you might like it.

And now, a warning-do not let "Usvainen Rhun" fool you with it's delicate recorder music and whispered Sindarin lyrics. "Storm of the Blades" perhaps the best track on the album-comes in with all the fire of Feanor and without hesitation. "Trollshaws" contains a strange weaving of the vocals over dark, primitive music full of drums, recorders and guitars. It actually seems reminiscent of The Enid for some reason at times, although Enid never played this heavy. "Elves of Lu'va" slows things down nicely without slamming things to a halt, flowing nicely into the excellent "Valier-Queens of the Valar". "Valier" is a driven song that has a Celtic feel to it and is one of my personal favorites on Third Sun. All of the songs have melodies and hooks that hold the listener to each of them and make the entire experience of hearing this effort enjoyable. The album is well arranged and the band is very talented, even with the strange costumes and pointy ears. Highly recommended whether you are a Lord of the Rings fan or not.