I make it no secret that I like the bombastic folk wankerings of Finntroll and fellow Finns Korpiklaani. Yeah, the shit isn’t very brutal, grim, harsh, or menacing, but there’s this weird, goofy quality about the music and a sense of rhythm and melody that make up for it. It’s drinking music at its finest, the kind where you don’t have a care in the world. Recently I got to sample Manegarm, a Swedish folk metal band in a vein not too far off from their fellow Scandinavians. Vredens Tid takes a few pages from their brethren in terms of melody and atmospheric parts, but Manegarm focuses a bit further on the metal side than does Finntroll or others.

Manegarm’s take on folk metal puts less focus on the folk aspect and more focus on harsh melodic metal with Swedish melodic death overtones and the occasional nod to NWOBHM riffs here or there. The atmospheric battles with trolls and other Nordic creatures, acoustic parts, and female vocal parts not unfamiliar to Asmegin fans are all there, but the main driving force is in the early Swedish melodic death influence. The title track alone illustrates this interweaving of styles and its very exact execution. However, as I said, the folk isn’t absent at all. "Svunna Minnen" and "Segervisa" still demonstrate the lush, soft vibes that have come to be associated with this post-black style of extreme melodic metal. The only gripe that I really have is that while the album demonstrates the best of the style, the choice to end the album so softly leaves me rather unfilled. Maybe the goofy, bizarre finale to Finntroll’s Jaktens Tid has left me greedy, but I would have rather expected a bombastic, speedy, beer brawl of a song, illustrating the rush of trolls to escape from the rising sun rather than a simple, somber Viking chant. Actually I have no idea what that final song on Jaktens Tid is about, as Swedish is a strange moon language from the planet Zansar, but that’s what it sounds like.

Nevertheless, Vredens Tid is a strong folk metal album. If you like Finntroll and the like, it will definitely go great with your collection. If I ever get married (HAHAHA!), this will be the drinking music.

Written By: Necro-tron