Otyg - Älvefärd (1997)

Otyg brings you quality folk metal from Sweden. They started out in 1995 as a celebration to old Scandinavian folk music. Vintersorg, the main songwriter, combined his talents with a highly accomplished bassist and violin player and created this album. As a sidenote, there's also a mouth harp featuring on this release. I must say that at my first hearing I wasn't too impressed with the music: it came over as a chaotic, mish-mashy wall of sound. But, as my friend had warned me before he lent me his disc, it needed a few listenings before I could reach full appreciation. Maybe it's due to the sound production, maybe it's due to the fullness of the music, or maybe it's just complex folk music, although I don't feel it's overly complex. I don't know really, but it sure needed more than two listenings before I could say it's actually quite a good album - they do capture the right atmosphere, which is very important in folk metal. So, if you like folk metal in the way Storm brings it (see earlier post), I bet you'll like this one, too. Superb front cover, by the way...

IFNKOVHGROGHPRM

posted by Paxjorge @ Friday, August 11, 2006