Fe, fo, fi, fum I smell the blood of a fiddly, folky band. Yep it’s time to troll of to the forest people and get slapping them knees and jigging away for some jolly old rip roaring party time metal. Now I quite liked the debut album from this lot in 2007 ‘Ravnenes Saga’ and was slightly bemused listening to it and discovering that Svartsot were not as expected from Finland but actually Denmark. I guess it means there will be no shortage of bacon or possibly the best lager in the world (to coin two country clichés) as they dance along to their music at the hoedown and I am guessing that the band maybe better known now having played some shows with our own pirates Alestorm. There has however been a fair few departures from the band since their debut including their vocalist who quite impressed me on it. In fact the only original member appears to be lead guitarist Cris J.S. Frederiksen. So has this made much of a change to them musically?
On listening to this a few times I have to admit I found it slightly annoying. To clarify why exactly, as the pipe call on opener ‘Æthelred’ trills up, I have to say that on the whole the album ended up giving me a bit of a headache due to incessant hurdy-gurdy call of the flutes, whistles, mandolin and accordion running through it. They have found another vocalist who is gruff like his predecessor but the other problem is that the growls of Thor Bager don’t strike as good. The other real problem is that with the longer running time (which is even longer if you the ltd digi with an extra 2 tracks) this goes on a bit beyond my comfort zone.
It’s not all bad though as when the dervish weave of songs like ‘Lokkevisen’ disperse of all the trimmings and play things like a metal song (as they do on a few numbers) they are really quite enjoyable. The bloody pipes are not far away though and by ‘Havfruens Kvad’ they are back in and annoying as they try and turn any Viking intent into a tinker gypsy carnival. Rape and pillage are out but if you cross a palm with silver you may end up with some lucky heather and your fortune read! Actually as I listen to this again it really is beginning to grate on the nerves. After all the album title is meant to translate as ‘Songs Of The Darkness’ not ‘Songs to sing whilst looking for the pot at the end of the bleeding rainbow!’
Apparently the former members left the group because of different opinions on how to run a band and how the music should sound. To be honest I am going to have to side with them on the basis of ‘Mulmets Visor’ and wonder if they are going to form their own band and if it will have the more aggressive stomp of the debut. You may well like this but for me it’s all too ‘la di da’ and I am sitting here wishing that someone would choke on their flute as the headache begins to overpower again.
http://www.svartsot.dk
http://www.myspace.com/svartsot
