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[miko2]

Today's Song: The Spring by Holy Blood

Another day, another extreme metal band from an odd corner of the world. Today I give you Holy Blood, a Christian folk/black metal band from the Ukraine. Now, normally if you had said "Christian folk metal from the Ukraine" they might have instantly become noe of my favorite bands, and they still might, but the black metal screaming vocals are not easy for me to get used to. Really, black metal vocals are not uncommon in folk metal, because most black metal was designed to be satanic or anti-Christian, and most of it came from Norway and Sweden, and this led to viking metal, which delved into ancient Norse mythology and glorified vikings, Odin, Thor, and battle in general and used a lot of heroic melodies and themes... and this led to pagan metal, which is the same thing only tailored to non-viking mythologies, and all of this lead pretty directly to folk metal itself, often with black metal screaming vocals still attached.

Thus, while you have a lot of normal folk-metal out there, it's not uncommon to get folk-metal with screaming vocals, even if it doesn't seem at first to be a logical fit.

And yet, the combo eludes a lot of people. It's funny to see all the confusion in people's comments about this band -- folk metal fans who like the music but think it would be better with a normal vocalist, black metal fans who like the music but say it would be better minus "the bits with the flute", and of course, there are Christians who don't think folk/death metal can be Christian, and anti-Christian fans of death metal who believe the same thing, and people who just think it's weird to sing a song about Spring with folk melodies, and also death metal screaming. Which I'll admit, it is.

I much prefer the folk metal of Hungarians Echo of Dalriada, who craft metal songs around real folk melodies and topics, and sing normally. I'm also a huge fan of Korpiklaani, who use rough voiced singing but it's never black metal screaming or death metal growling... and who are not so much anti-Christian as they are generally pro-pagan (and pro-drinking). They're quite fun. I'm even a big fan of Ensiferum, which is a viking metal band that uses death metal vocals that are relatively clearly understood and are accompanied by some incredible metal melodies with a lot of folk influence.

Still, Holy Blood is a good band, and you can get their stuff here in the U.S. pretty easily... Amazon, iTunes, etc., even CDBaby has them. This is all the more amazing when you consider that plain old regular metal bands from places like the Ukraine are not always easy to come by, let along folk metal or pagan metal bands (I like Latvian pagan metal band Skyforger for example, but their cds are difficult for me to come by)... and yet, Holy Blood is actually a Christian folk metal band, and doing well. I give them a lot of credit for forging their own path -- there aren't a lot of other Christian folk metal bands anywhere else in the world, let alone the Ukraine. And in case anyone doubts their actual motives -- band leader Fedor has a video on their web site in which he gives his testimony (with subtitles in English).

Holy Blood - The Spring

Holy Blood - To Heaven