Description
Folkearth is an international music project, a supergroup, created by musicians playing folk and viking metal. The name (folk earth) symbolises musicians rom all over the world playing folk music. The band started in 2003 as an idea of Ruslanas from Ravenclaw, who sent the idea to his friendly bands. With Magnus Wohlfart from Nae’blis as a composer of music, Wulfstan and Athelstan from Forefather and Marios Koutsoukos as lyric composers the group started to form. Many other musicians were recruited and finaly in spring 2004 the recording started. There was around 60 minutes of material, but some of it got lost, and the first album ‘A Nordic Poem’ is only 40 minutes long. Because of the bad quality of this record, the band decided to remaster and reissue their debut in 2006. Because of the unical structure of Folkearth, the recording is also different from the one that the members individual bands do. Each song begins from one single person or band that is involved in Folkearth and later the other members add their touch to it. Sometimes the work on a single song is based on a single riff or melody, other times some artist writes a song entirely on his own and other musicians simply orchestrate minor details on it. The band members also don’t work all together, but rather with small groups, exchanging material they recorded with others. The music Folkearth makes is regular folk/viking metal, but the notable thing about it is that they incorporate a diverse selection of folk instruments, such as lute, nyckelharpa, shawm, saz and many others. Because of the nature of this project, Folkearth albums are inconsistent, and sound rather like compilations and the musical style vary from one track to another, some are closely related to black metal. Even if the groups line up have had a large rotation the core members when it comes to songwriting have stayed in place, and the epic folk/viking metal sound they have established with their varying guest musicians is unaffected with this third album. That is not to say that ‘Drakkars in the mist’ does not differ from its predecessor in certain respects. On the whole, it is probably a softer and more reflective piece, with a more direct focus on the acoustic guitars and varied traditional instruments than before. Indeed, a great deal of the CD can simply be classed as ‘folk’ rather than ‘folk metal’, with several songs being completely devoid of drums and electric guitar. It is actually refreshing to hear Folkearth taking a slightly different approach this time around, and the folk instruments are given a little more room to express themselves than they were on ‘By the sword of my father’. There are, of course, still several more straightforward viking metal songs that compliment the traditional pieces, with ‘De tause fjell’ providing a more power metallish, Ensiferum-like sound to stand against the black metal influenced songs such as the opener, ‘Before battle I embrace’. What Folkearth have provided with ‘Drakkars in the mist’ is another tremendously varied collection of Nordic folk metal that clings closely to its predecessors without ever sounding like a rehash. Lineup: -Belgium: Roman Samonin, Ralf Goosens -Croatia: Vojan Koceic -Germany: Morten Basse -Greece: Marios Koutsoukos, Stefanos Koutsoukos, Polydeykis, Thanasis Karapanos, Hildr Valkyrie, Faethon, Nikos Nezeiritis -Lithuania: Ruslanas -North Italy: Ulven, Raven, Axel -Norway: Haavard Tveito -Russia: Orey, Vetrodar -Spain: Autumn, Winter, A. Mansilla, Jose Luis Frias, Jesus Sierra, GG Karman, A. Pangin -Sweden: Magnus Wohlfart, Simon Frodeberg, William Ekerberg -United States of America: Dreogan, Mark Riddick
Track listing:
1. Before Battle I Embrace
2. Hoplites Awaiting Command
3. Hugin And Munin
4. Grimnismol (The Ballad of Grimnir)
5. Hogtid
6. Sworn To The Raven
7. Great God Pan
8. Drakkars In The Mist
9. Midgard Farewell
10. De Tause Fjell
11. If I Should Fall
12. When Long Ships Arrive
13. On Wings Divine
14. Thunders Of War
15. The Bane Of Giants
16. Kingdom Of The Shades
17. The Riding Of The Queen Boudiccea