The Rock Blogger

Falkenbach. Heralding the Fire Blade. 2005. 4 stars.

A rather majestic viking metal album from Germany that is full of adventurous sentiment and powerful musicianship. Some stylistic elements from folk metal and black metal blend together nicely, as sweeping symphonic tones meet battle-ready drumming and aggressive. thrashing riffs. The vocals are quite good as well, switching between bellowing, cleanly song odes to conquest (”Heathen’s Foray” to snarling, vitriolic rasps. The contrast is lively and inspired, darting across that fine line between heroism and inconsolable madness.

Heralding the Fire Blade is an impressive showcase for Vratyas Vakyas’ multi-instrumental abilities and his keen ear for melody. Its hard to believe that such a well produced and composed record was put togehter by a one man show, but here it is, in all its shore-storming glory. While this is probably my favorite Viking Metal album I’ve come across so far, it still suffers from some of the common ailments of the genre, like some overlong songs and repetiitve vocals. Luckily, the shfiting of aesthetics, from traditional folk sounds to modern black metal, keeps things interesting. Heralding the Fire Blade has a strong gravity to it, and it draws you into its landscape quite violently. Entertaining and epic, a victirious, ocean-charging campaign.

Falkenbach - “Laeknishendr”

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 28th, 2008 at 9:17 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.