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What Are You Listening To?


khaos

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'Als De Door Weer Naar Ons Lacht' by Heidevolk.

Well' date=' folk is just not really a genre I like. Except some Finntroll and Eluveitie on the right moment.[/quote'] I'm noticing that, not a whole lot of people on this forum are as fond of folk as I am.
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I have flirted with Folk music a little but never ventured into Folk Metal really. I suppose it has to be done well in order to marry the two together to hold my interest. Keep hearing the term Viking Metal banded about in the same conversations as Folk Metal though? I do hope it is not as one dimensional as the description sounds and is all tales of drinking mead and sailing in big ships. If there are actual stories based on Nordic mythology I am in.

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I do hope it is not as one dimensional as the description sounds and is all tales of drinking mead and sailing in big ships. If there are actual stories based on Nordic mythology I am in.
Otyg, if I remember correctly, sings about Norse mythology, as does Svartsot. Tyr does albums about different Viking heroes and tales too. Batavi, the Heidevolk album I was listening to, is an album chronicling the resistance by the Batavi peoples to Roman rule. Folk metal is frequently about history, and there are plenty of albums in that vein.
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I have flirted with Folk music a little but never ventured into Folk Metal really. I suppose it has to be done well in order to marry the two together to hold my interest. Keep hearing the term Viking Metal banded about in the same conversations as Folk Metal though? I do hope it is not as one dimensional as the description sounds and is all tales of drinking mead and sailing in big ships. If there are actual stories based on Nordic mythology I am in.
Dude, Enslaved! Not necessarily narratives, but their lyrics are inspired by Norse mythology. (To be fair, I don't know that they'd consider it mythology.) Arguably the first "Viking metal" band, and just so fucking awesome...
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Re: What Are You Listening To?

I have flirted with Folk music a little but never ventured into Folk Metal really. I suppose it has to be done well in order to marry the two together to hold my interest. Keep hearing the term Viking Metal banded about in the same conversations as Folk Metal though? I do hope it is not as one dimensional as the description sounds and is all tales of drinking mead and sailing in big ships. If there are actual stories based on Nordic mythology I am in.
Folk metal looks like a good marriage on paper (folk instruments and/or structures and chord progressions mixed with various kinds of metal), but unfortunately (like many trends in music), the idea is what catches on and little effort is put into developing either side of the sound by most bands. Most of the best folk metal bands are the ones who were doing it the earliest, and were combining the two out of genuine feeling, rather than for the sake of novelty. Viking metal was a term coined by Enslaved to describe their sound, but they themselves have stated that the earliest band this label should be applied to is Bathory. Viking metal embodies a very epic and triumphant feeling, and is often a melding of traditional epic heavy metal like Manowar with black/death metal aesthetics and techniques (but not always). Basically stuff that has that same rousing ready for battle feeling as Hammerheart, but most bands use black metal vocals as opposed to clean vocals like Quorthon. Viking metal can also have folk instruments, as can pagan metal, but the way they write their songs is what makes the difference. Pagan metal (or pagan black metal) is really just black metal with melodies that wouldn't sound out of place in viking or folk metal, but the base of the sound is pretty much just black metal. Sent from my HTC PH39100 using Tapatalk 2
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