"Stand Up And Fight" by Turisas - Serious Review

 Originally written Monday, February 28, 2011

Stand Up and Fight is the 3rd full-length album from Finnish Folk-metal stars Turisas. The band entered the studio in March of last year, and effectively lived there for several months, hammering out and polishing their most ambitious release to-date. The band stated before started production that their plan was to make this the album where they started headlining tours, as opposed to the supporting roles they'd played up until then, and It shows. The album is extremely ambitious, incorporating real horn and orchestral recordings as opposed to the samples used in their previous album The Varangian Way.

Track 1: The March of  the Varangian Guard
Those horns I mentioned earlier? They're what starts this album out, and they immediately know what you're up for. This is an album that's going for a BIG feel. Turisas want you to feel like you're experiencing an epic tale of power and fantasy, and they definitely achieve it. This song tells you exactly what you're into; liberal use of violins, trumpets, and a choir backing the riffs that Jussi Wickström belts out on nearly every track. Those looking for a more conventional sounding metal album may be turned off, but for fans of Turisas' other work, this song won't disappoint.

Track 2: Take The Day!
This is, pure and simple, a stadium rock song. It's still got the metal overtones, especially with Tude Lehtonen's drumming, but at it's core I'm sure it's here to give the band something to get every butt at their shows out of the seats. There's a powerful, and more importantly LOUD bridge that absolutely blazes with energy. There's several bits in the beginning that act as build-ups to it, and it gets you pumped for the rest of the album.

Track 3: Hunting Pirates
While some Turisas fans would probably have my head for it, this song is reminiscent of the sound of the band Alestorm. Not to say that they're aping off of somebody else' s style, but it seems more an homage to the Pirate-themed metal band's jaunty aesthetic. Netta Skog shows her skill on the accordion during this song, with much of the aesthetic of the song coming from her.

Track 4: Veretoi! -  Prasinoi!
This track is pure, unleaded fun. Many times folk-metal bands make a more "dancy" tune, it ends up breaking the mood of the album, either by sounding too odd compared to the rest of the album, or the song being too one-note. Neither happen here, with the whole song keeping the feeling of the album despite it being (for the most part) much more upbeat. It's certain to become a favorite at their shows.

Track 5: Stand Up And Fight
This was the first and only single released for the album prior to release, and oddly enough it's probably the most forgettable track on the disk. It's still and enjoyable song, but comes off feeling too long, as if the band had the song done, but decided to slow it down to pad out the album. Not to say it's "bad" per se, but compared to the songs around it, it just isn't anything special.

Track 6: The Great Escape
This song starts straight out building up to a powerful, frenetic, and dark sound. This is the first track to feature Mathias Nygård growling a lot, and he pulls it off well. As a whole it's a big step up from the title track, with a much more layered sound, as well as reintroducing the Stadium Rock feel from Take The Day! I again feel it could have been shortened some, as there's a section towards the end that very much feels like it's padding out the length. Still, a strong track with a lot of energy.

Track 7: Fear The Fear
Hands down my favorite song on the album. It's long, epic, powerful, and feels like a microcosm of the entire album. It's got Mathias giving what is possibly his best vocal performance to date. The songs starts out loud, but then falls to a slowly building guitar strum that's almost reminiscent of Refused's song New Noise. The tune is majestic, bombastic, inspiring, and just about every other positive adjective I can think of. The song changes tempo and rythm numerous times, but it never feels uneven or sporadic, feeling very much like a journey in itself.

Track 8: End of an Empire
On each of their albums, it kind of become a tradition to put a long, epic, and choir-heavy track near the end of the album, and Stand Up And Fight doesn't break the streak. While Fear The Fear was long, it had a fast pace that kept it from feeling like it was 6 minutes. The opposite is true of End of an Empire, but that's not a bad thing. It's slow, but never feels boring, and overall feels much more somber. The first minute and a half are a soft, piano heavy ballad, with the guitars not kicking in proper until the 100 second mark. Everything about this song feels grand.

Track 9: The Bosphorus Freezes Over
Often bands will end an album with a loud, long, and energetic song to close everything out. Turisas decided to go a different path. The beginning of The Bosphorus Freezes Over is soft, and feels like something one might hear in a ballet. The drums slowly kick in, and Mathias performs the whole thing in somber spoken-word. The entire song feels like the aftermath of a great battle, sad but with a kind of catharsis about the whole affair.

Overall, Stand Up And Fight is an ambitious undertaking that's full of energy, power, intelligence, and most importanly emotion. Some long-time fans may be turned off by the more polished feel, but anyone interested in an album with a big sound should most certainly check it out.

"Ukon Wacka" by Korpiklaani - Serious Review

Originally Written Saturday, February 12, 2011

So yeah, I'm bored and just downloaded the latest album of a band I like, so I decided what better way to entertain myself than to shamelessly spread my uninformed opinion across the interwebs? I'm going to do a track-by-track review/breakdown of the latest Korpiklaani album "Ukon Wacka" and I'm sure nobody will actually care. :D

Track 1: Louhen Yhdeksäs Poika
So yeah, the titles and lyrics are in Finnish, and as I rarely take lyrical content into consideration, I'm not translating them. I'll just be going my own impressions of the songs.
Louhen Yhdeksäs Poika does its job of opening the album VERY well. From the opening fiddle to it's close Louhen  really starts getting you pumped for what's ahead. It's fast-paced, with Jonne Järvelä barely taking a breath between verses, and the drums smashing out a furious, almost tribal beat that always reminds me these guys used to be named Shaman

Track 2: Päät Pois Tai Hirteen
The second track slows things down a bit, opening with a guitar-accordion combination that's become a staple of Korpiklaani's folk-metal sound. While the song is enjoyable, and I get the feeling it would be fun as hell to sing along with in Finnish, it feels kind of lackluster compared to the opening track. I think my problem comes with how sort of one-note it feels until the end.

Track 3: Tuoppi Oltta
This song is very much a call-back to the folk music origins of the band. This is evidenced by the fact that the melody isn't set by the guitars, vocals, bass, or drums. It's set by the violins and flutes that dominate the first third of the song. The whole thing sounds like a reminder to their long-time fans that while they've gone from straight Folk to Folk Metal, at the core their music's unchanged.

Track 4: Lonkkaluut
This is the first track on the album I debated on skipping when I was re-listening. It's not that the song's bad, but it's very average. There's nothing very memorable about it, with the melody feeling very much like other metal songs I've listened to, and nothing that attention-grabbing about it. As I'm a completionist when it comes to things that aren't school work, I decided to listen to it anyway, and while I can't say I'm sorry I did, it's still nothing that really sticks with me afterward.

Track 5: Tequila
This was the first song I heard off of Ukon Wacka and you can bet it got me pumped for the album. The song brings back the high energy of Louhen Yhdeksäs Poika and acts as sort of a spiritual Sequel song to the lead single Vodka from their previous album Karkelo, which happened to be the first Korpiklaani song I ever heard. It's the second shortest song on the album, clocking in at 2:42, but it packs a lot into it, with drum beats that sound more like a drum circle than something produced in a studio, a loud call for more alcohol from the singer, and a healthy dose of accordion thrown in for good measure. Definitely a song to play at a party

Track 6: Ukon Wacka
This is one of the more interesting tracks. It's a slower pace, which usually works as a detriment for this band, and it has elements of metalcore in it, which usually works as a detriment to anything ever. And yet, while I wouldn't say this is my favorite songs on the album, it definitely catches my interest for the entire length of the song. It's a bit heavier than those preceding it, and sounds a lot more despondent (there's a section about 3 minutes in that's reminiscent of a funeral march), the song never gets depressing. Of all things, by the end it comes off sounding happy.

Track 7: Korvesta Liha
Here we meet another song that I'm tempted to skip during re-listens. It's fairly generic in the beginning, taking nearly half its time to get to anything musically interesting. The middle minute is pretty fun, with nice dash of flute thrown in that I appreciated, but it's over pretty quick back to a very familiar guitar melody. I again can't say it's a bad track, but it's painfully average, to the point that I find myself skipping the first 45 seconds to get to something more enjoyable.

Track 8: Koivu Ja Tähti
The first minute of Koivu Ja Tähti reminds me of a song you'd hear in an old Scandinavian bar...only distorted and warped to the point it sounds foreboding. The song, while good, sounds very strange from these guys. There's a section of the track that I actually thought was from a Blind Guardian song. There's nothing wrong with it, and It's a marked improvement from Korvesta Liha, but a bit off-putting this late into the album. I can't really put down exactly what my problem with it is.

Track 9: Vaarinpolkka
If Google Translator is to be trusted (up for debate) the title of this song translates to "Grandfather's Polka" but it's anything but your grandpa's music. It's the shortest track on the album, and an instrumental. Now I usually dislike instrumentals, since they're usually just a place for the guitarists to show off, but amazingly enough I think Vaarinpolkka may be my favorite song off of Ukno Wacka. It's got tons of energy and fun packed into it, staying just long enough to get the blood pumping without over staying its welcome.

Track 10: Surma
The final song on the album proper, as well as the longest track at 6:20, Surma closes out the album in true Metal fashion. It's starts off slow and folksy, with a wooden flute playing a tune, a fiddle joining in, the drums starting up, and finally all 3 guitars kicking in. With the intro fading out, Järvelä bursts in with the vocals at a break-neck speed that makes the opening track sound like a ballad, followed by a scream to the heavens. It's powerful, epic, and comes off sounding like an old warrior regaling us with an old battle Tale that you know isn't true but still sounds amazing. (Okay I have no clue where that little bought of waxing poetic came from) The song fades out, and the album's over with.

Bonus Track: Iron Fist
...Until the bonus track, a Motorhead cover no-less, comes in. And boy does it break the mood. Again I'm not saying it's a bad song, it's problem is inherited by virtue of being a cover, and a cover of an English-speaking band. I can understand wanting to do tribute to a famous Metal band, but it doesn't mesh with the overall feel of the album, and really feels like something to put on with a single or EP. Still, it IS a bonus track, so I guess I can't complain too much.

Overall, Ukon Wacka is a good album, but it's nothing game-changing. It's more of what Korpiklaani have made in the past, but I certainly can't call that a bad thing.