Kivenkantaja by Moonsorrow [via Ktulu]
I've had great difficulty finding something to write about this, yet I absolutely love this album. I must have listened to it at least 10 times since it was rec'd, and it never gets old. I love it every time. It just sounds so epic, so big, and it sets up the atmosphere amazingly well.
I do not speak Finnish, so I cannot comment on the story being told in the lyrics, however, the music and atmosphere created within paints a picture of a battle of some sorts taking place. You've got everything here: slower, more atmospheric section, fast, intense sections, more folky sections with different instruments, acoustic sections, slower, more intense sections, everything. Every song is full of emotion, and you can feel what the story is about.
The music is simply fantastic. There are no other words to describe it. Production is very good on the album (you can understand most of the words being spoken, though if you don't know Finnish, they may not mean much. Still, if you have a copy of the lyrics, you can definitely follow along. There's just not enough praise that I can give this. It is just amazing folk metal, by far one of the best albums I've listened to in a long time.
The only thing I can say is don't listen to the YouTube album upload, I feel the reduced sound quality does not do it justice. Go buy the thing, if you even slightly like folk metal. Hell, get this if you like atmospheric black metal like Windir, Negura Bunget, Bathory (especially the later albums like Nordland I and II), I think you get the idea. I love this album, and I wish I had discovered Moonsorrow's music much, much earlier.
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