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miko2Okay, before I tell you about this band Skyforger I want to try to explain a few terms.
Death Metal is originally a Northern European invention. It is metal played very heavy and dark and doomy, with vocals that sound like a demon croaking from the grave. Or something like that. And lyrics that are about demons croakign from the grave, or something. I haven't actually listened to very much of this music, it's not something that appeals to me a great deal, but I guess when you live in the bleak frozen North this kind of music comes more easily to you.
Viking Metal is also from Northern Europe, in case you couldn't guess from the name. This started out in Norway I believe, although it probably caught on in Sweden quite quickly too. Viking Metal is death metal given a twist -- usually you still have the death metal growls, but the music is much more melodic, even borrowing some ancient folk melody, and the lyrics are about Vikings and ancient history and pagan gods. A good example of Viking Metal is Einherjer... I'm still trying to track down their cd "Odin Owns Ye All". Another band that I like very much, Enisferum, is a Finnish metal band that employs ancient melodys and sings about ancient warriors and fantasy stuff. They could be considered Viking Metal too.
Folk Metal is another mostly European thing. Closely related to Viking Metal, Folk Metal employs ancient folk melodies and usually instruments as well -- it's much more of a blend of actual folk music with metal, and not simply metal with some folk melody inserted. The distinctions here are pretty fine, but one example of a folk metal band that I like is Korpiklaani, a Finnish band (the name means "Forest Clan") which writes a lot about ancient Finns and Shamanism, and also about getting drunk (their favorite thing to do, apparently). Sometimes they manage to combine two themes at once, as in Wooden Pints, a song about the little people that live underground and like to get drunk. I like to think of it as a song about the Nac Mac Feagle. ^_^
A second folk metal band that I like is the Irish band Cruachan, which writes about ancient Irish people, their pagan gods and stories, and also writes a lot about why the Irish hate the British. You know, typical angry Irish stuff.
Now, Skyforger is a band from Latvia, and they are variously described as Folk Metal, Death Metal, or Pagan Metal. As far as I can tell, Pagan Metal is very similar to the folk metal of Cruachan and Korpiklaani and the Viking Metal of Einherjer -- metal songs about pagan gods. For this reason you just might call Skyforger a Viking Metal band, except that Latvians never went a-viking.
So I got this Skyforger cd today, Latvian Riflemen. Apparently it's a bit different from their other cds -- this entire cd is about the Latvian Rifle Regiments that were formed during World War I to defend their land from the invading Germans. Apparently this is something of a point of pride with the Latvians, they were part of Czarist Russia but were allowed to form their own batallions during the war (and of course, became temporarily free after the war, until Stalin came around). So this cd is different from their others because every song focuses on WWI, in fact covering, song by song, the important battles that the Latvian Riflemen were a part of. Because of their focus on relatively modern history, as opposed to 13th century history, they employ less folk melody and don't employ the deep death metal growling they would normally use. (They say on their web page that singing about WWI battles in a death metal voice would be stupid. I'm not sure I see the distinction, but whatever.)
This is also apparently a folk metal/viking metal thing, to write patriotic songs. Cruachan writes quite a bit about the ancient Irish who fought the Vikings (does that make it Anti-Viking Metal?) and of course the modern Irish who fought the British. Korpliklaani has a song about their native land which has never been conquered, an apparent reference to their successful repelling of Soviet Russia. I guess when you start digging into your culture's folk music and ancient mythology, you become more Patriotic.
So "Latvian Riflemen" is a fun cd, even if everything is sung in Latvian. They're a very noisy type of metal band -- guitars buzzing and thrashing at a thousand miles an hour, bass drums rolling beneath the waves of guitar noise. Not a lot of nuanced guitarwork going on here, but a lot of energy and excitement. I listened to it several times and I like it. ^_^ I'll be interested to see whether I like their other stuff more because of the stronger folk melodies, or less because of the death metal vocals -- but I'll have to wait to get another cd of theirs, most of them were pricey imports or not readily avaliable through normal channels.
The English version of their website can be found here. I thought it was particularly interesting because it contains the band leader's explanation of who the Latvian pagan gods are, as far as he understand them (and he admits that some of what he writes is speculation, as much of the history of Latvian's ancient belief was destroyed first by Christianity and then by the Soviets, who tried to perpetuate the idea that ancient Latvians simply had no pagan gods or religeous rites at all). You'll have to go to the main site and select "Stories" to find the page on Latvian mythology, but it's worth a look. You very likely won't find any of that information in even the more complete mythology books available at your local library. ^_^
Death Metal is originally a Northern European invention. It is metal played very heavy and dark and doomy, with vocals that sound like a demon croaking from the grave. Or something like that. And lyrics that are about demons croakign from the grave, or something. I haven't actually listened to very much of this music, it's not something that appeals to me a great deal, but I guess when you live in the bleak frozen North this kind of music comes more easily to you.
Viking Metal is also from Northern Europe, in case you couldn't guess from the name. This started out in Norway I believe, although it probably caught on in Sweden quite quickly too. Viking Metal is death metal given a twist -- usually you still have the death metal growls, but the music is much more melodic, even borrowing some ancient folk melody, and the lyrics are about Vikings and ancient history and pagan gods. A good example of Viking Metal is Einherjer... I'm still trying to track down their cd "Odin Owns Ye All". Another band that I like very much, Enisferum, is a Finnish metal band that employs ancient melodys and sings about ancient warriors and fantasy stuff. They could be considered Viking Metal too.
Folk Metal is another mostly European thing. Closely related to Viking Metal, Folk Metal employs ancient folk melodies and usually instruments as well -- it's much more of a blend of actual folk music with metal, and not simply metal with some folk melody inserted. The distinctions here are pretty fine, but one example of a folk metal band that I like is Korpiklaani, a Finnish band (the name means "Forest Clan") which writes a lot about ancient Finns and Shamanism, and also about getting drunk (their favorite thing to do, apparently). Sometimes they manage to combine two themes at once, as in Wooden Pints, a song about the little people that live underground and like to get drunk. I like to think of it as a song about the Nac Mac Feagle. ^_^
A second folk metal band that I like is the Irish band Cruachan, which writes about ancient Irish people, their pagan gods and stories, and also writes a lot about why the Irish hate the British. You know, typical angry Irish stuff.
Now, Skyforger is a band from Latvia, and they are variously described as Folk Metal, Death Metal, or Pagan Metal. As far as I can tell, Pagan Metal is very similar to the folk metal of Cruachan and Korpiklaani and the Viking Metal of Einherjer -- metal songs about pagan gods. For this reason you just might call Skyforger a Viking Metal band, except that Latvians never went a-viking.
So I got this Skyforger cd today, Latvian Riflemen. Apparently it's a bit different from their other cds -- this entire cd is about the Latvian Rifle Regiments that were formed during World War I to defend their land from the invading Germans. Apparently this is something of a point of pride with the Latvians, they were part of Czarist Russia but were allowed to form their own batallions during the war (and of course, became temporarily free after the war, until Stalin came around). So this cd is different from their others because every song focuses on WWI, in fact covering, song by song, the important battles that the Latvian Riflemen were a part of. Because of their focus on relatively modern history, as opposed to 13th century history, they employ less folk melody and don't employ the deep death metal growling they would normally use. (They say on their web page that singing about WWI battles in a death metal voice would be stupid. I'm not sure I see the distinction, but whatever.)
This is also apparently a folk metal/viking metal thing, to write patriotic songs. Cruachan writes quite a bit about the ancient Irish who fought the Vikings (does that make it Anti-Viking Metal?) and of course the modern Irish who fought the British. Korpliklaani has a song about their native land which has never been conquered, an apparent reference to their successful repelling of Soviet Russia. I guess when you start digging into your culture's folk music and ancient mythology, you become more Patriotic.
So "Latvian Riflemen" is a fun cd, even if everything is sung in Latvian. They're a very noisy type of metal band -- guitars buzzing and thrashing at a thousand miles an hour, bass drums rolling beneath the waves of guitar noise. Not a lot of nuanced guitarwork going on here, but a lot of energy and excitement. I listened to it several times and I like it. ^_^ I'll be interested to see whether I like their other stuff more because of the stronger folk melodies, or less because of the death metal vocals -- but I'll have to wait to get another cd of theirs, most of them were pricey imports or not readily avaliable through normal channels.
The English version of their website can be found here. I thought it was particularly interesting because it contains the band leader's explanation of who the Latvian pagan gods are, as far as he understand them (and he admits that some of what he writes is speculation, as much of the history of Latvian's ancient belief was destroyed first by Christianity and then by the Soviets, who tried to perpetuate the idea that ancient Latvians simply had no pagan gods or religeous rites at all). You'll have to go to the main site and select "Stories" to find the page on Latvian mythology, but it's worth a look. You very likely won't find any of that information in even the more complete mythology books available at your local library. ^_^
