By Carl Begai
Finntroll have seemingly been on a mission to tear folk metal as a genre a new one since 2007.
The Finnish septet rose to popularity amongst pagan/folk metal fans over the course of three albums – Midnattens Widunder (’99), Jaktens Tid (’01), Nattfödd (’04) – but chose to adopt a much darker and heavier black metal-influenced sound when they returned in ’07 with the Ur Jordens Jup album and new singer Mathias “Vreth” Lillmåns. Call it a reaction to the folk metal bands that were cropping up at every turn trying to cash in on a trend. It was a move that didn’t hurt Finntroll nearly as much as some fans and media people expected, which led to the even heavier and uglier Nifelvind record three years later. The ‘Trolls showed no signs or intentions of pulling back the violence for the future, which makes their new album Blodsvept a bigger surprise than any black/death/doom metal flavoured platter they could have come up with.
“People have said this is the most diverse Finntroll album so far, and I think so too,” says Lillmåns. “We made some good choices when we did the pre-production for this album.”
When it came down to the actual recordings, however, there were moments when Blodsvept was on its way to blowing apart at the seams. The band documented their studio adventures via an online blog (found here), and there was a fair bit of kicking and screaming going on during the recording sessions thanks to some nightmarish technical glitches.
“It was a total horror show this time,” Lillmåns confirms. “They say we have this Finntroll studio curse because usually somebody has a close relative that dies when we’re recording, but this time nobody died. There must be some sort of equilibrium, though, because we had eight tracks of guitars that died in the middle of the whole thing.” Continue reading BW&BK Interview: FINNTROLL – New Blood For Old F(r)iends