On balance, I'd take another emotional crisis over your slow pulse rate

Continuing my trip up #album-of-the-day...

20.05.22 : From The Fires - Greta Van Fleet (2017)

Never heard of the album or the artist, but going on the artist name alone I was hoping for some indie female singer/songwriter tunes (a la Sharon Van Etten, maybe).  However, one look at the album cover suggested that was somewhat unlikely to be the case given that they'd obviously used the same heavy metal album cover generator as Gloryhammer.  However, where Gloryhammer somewhat redeemed themselves by going waaaaay over the top, Greta (or Transit, as I feel the need to refer to them from now on) does not, for me, do enough to keep my interest and I found it really rather tiresome.  There were definitely some skills on display though - I'll give them that.  It was also "interesting" to hear their cover of Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come" which is the 4th version I've reviewed so far and it's fair to say their version is somewhat different from Sam, Otis or Aretha's.

The channel either liked it and thought it reminded them of Led Zep (which I didn't personally get from it) or they declared it to be "not their cup of tea".  Wikipedia also mentions Led Zep (for Generation Z, apparently) so obviously I wasn't listening closely enough (I accept this is a possibility).  I'm frankly amazed the album got to #36 in the US - and reached #1 in the US Americana album chart (whatever that is). 

"Customers also listened to" a load of people I've never heard of people and a few people who I have heard of who sound nothing like this lot.  I can see they have their fans, but it won't surprise you to hear I'm not among their number.

20.05.26 : Kingdoms In Colour - Maribou State (2018)

I think I've heard some Maribou State stuff in the past, but was struggling to remember it, so was pretty much coming to this blind.  And there are some interesting enough noises on the album and it worked very well in the sunshine but overall it was a bit too forgettable for me.  I'm trying to think of a description and all I can up with is "sunny" - does this help?  I like the album cover - I'm a sucker for ones without titles or band names!

The channel thought it was great though - quite a few people were previously unaware but declared themselves instant converts.  Wikipedia doesn't have an entry for the album - the band's entry tells me they're from the UK (just up the road from me in Berkhamsted, apparently), which somewhat surprised me because I'd just assumed they were from the US.  It also tells me this album got to #25 in the UK - it feels like someone associated with the group needs to get an entry written because we've had far lesser albums acknowledged.

"Customers also listened to" an awful lot of people I've never heard of.  This was a strange one - it felt like an album that I should like and I liked the sounds I was hearing, but as a whole album, for some reason it just drifted past me.  If I remember, I'll put it on again in the garden (maybe during a bbq) and see if it sticks more.

20.05.27 : Kivenkantaja - Moonsorrow (2003)

Mr Emerson, who proposed this, has been positively gleeful in recent times with expectation as to how much I'm not going to enjoy this, so I must admit I approached it with a not insignificant amount of apprehension.

But actually I quite liked it - I thought that some of the metaphysical imagery was really particularly effective.  Interesting rhythmic devices too, which seemed to counterpoint the surrealism of the underlying metaphor of the Vogonity of the poet's compassionate soul...

OK, it's very much not my cup of tea - far too long, overblown and repetitive for my liking - and they really didn't help themselves with a 13 minute opening track.  But I certainly didn't hate it - I can appreciate the skills involved and, whilst I didn't like the vocal style, I actually found it less annoying than Transit's offering above.  The live stuff was impressive - although I'd have to say the audience could have made more of an effort to engage!  It was also surprisingly effective at fading into the background, which was totally something I wasn't expecting.  This doesn't, however, mean I'm going to be investigating the remainder of their body of work.

The channel generally settled for a tactful "it's good to listen to something different" but there were a few fans of the growls.  Wikipedia contains the following in-depth comment on the album "Kivenkantaja ("Stonebearer") is the third full-length album by Finnish pagan metal band Moonsorrow. It was released on March 10, 2003 through Spinefarm Records."  And obviously, given my obsession with musical genres, I was going to look up "pagan metal" wasn't I?  Apparently it's "a genre of heavy metal music which fuses extreme metal with "the pre-Christian traditions of a specific culture or region" through thematic concept, rustic melodies, unusual instruments or archaic languages", usually referring to folk metal or black metal".  Hopefully this has cleared things up for you as much as it has for me.

"Customers also listened to" Summoning, Primordial, Elderwind, Falkenbach, Einherjer - there's no end to the single-worded band names that pagan metal bands appear to like.  And whilst this album was most certainly an education for me, it's not an education I feel the need to extend further.

So which of the three albums I'm probably never going to listen to again am I going to declare the winner?  Maribou State are definitely more in my ballpark than the other two and they're the local boys, so they get it.

20.05.19 - Three albums from a three year period
20.05.28 - Lots of words!