Folks! My dear, wonderful, metal-loving folks! This is me, signal-boostin' for a comparatively little known band which deserves far greater renown! Behold! Straight from the dark and foreboding vales of Austria, a band which would offer up to thee the hardest-hitting pagan metal with black metal influences: Alphayn!
They've got all kinds of awesome tracks on their new album Heimkehr - Alarich is about the life and death of Alaric the First (quite well known for sacking Rome) and incorporates a famous german poem from the early 19th century, while a retelling of the Norse creation of the world as portrayed in the Gylfaginning can be heard in Weltenanfang. Wir Rufen Deine Wölfe incorporates yet another German poem, this time about the Allfather and his Wild Hunt, and Abstieg illustrates how terrible the wrath of Thor, the son of Odin, god of thunder, slayer of giants and protector of Midgard...*draws in some breath*...can be.
Reise is my fav'rite track of that particular album, seeing as how it's been inspired by Stephen King's The Dark Tower and follows Roland of Gilead's mad chase across the wasteland, covering the first book of the series quite handily. Though the Can'-Ka No Rey are never as far as one might be led to believe, surely?
If I've managed to pique yer curiousity, do head on over to Alphayn's bandcamp page and give their album a listen. Hell, you might even be sufficiently motivated to buy it by then, eh?
And yes, it's all sung in German. Should shake up your usual metal routine something fierce, yeah? (Unless you're heavily into Rammstein. But then again, Alphayn's style is quite far removed from those guys.) Also, the drummer is - yes, indeed! - female and rrrreally tiny. I, for one, am impressed by how those slender arms can beat out the most vicious of rhythms.