Falconer – Northwind

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impulse buy

Metal Blade
Produced by Falconer

The Swedish metallers fifth album brings more of the same epic power metal they’ve delivered before with heavy smatterings of medieval folk, giving the album as a whole the epic Lord-of-The-Rings battle-hymn feel you’d expect from someone like Blind Guardian or Rhapsody of Fire.

Going so whole-heartedly in the epic medieval direction as this does introduce a substantial level of lameness, with visions of people dancing at a dinner party in Camelot, tights and all, not uncommon while listening. Some of the poor lyrics (Spirit of The Hawk) don’t help. “Spirit of the Hawk, wild and free, flying ever so high”, for example.

That said, there are some perfect power metal riffs, solos and in particular the melodic vocals of Mathias Blad that make this a more than enjoyable listen to someone that likes the less-than-genuine side of power metal. There’s only so much fairytale land this and queens of that one can take, however, and albums such as this do wear thin before too long. It’s unfortunate that their approach has slightly let them down in this respect, because every member of the band is impressively skilled and if perhaps let loose on some more “real” material, they could be even more impressive.

This really is an album for power metal fans. To those that aren’t, it’s one that will reaffirm the generalisations they’ve always thought about power metal (mostly created for the benefit of Manowar), and while by no means does all power metal fit these ideas of epic tales of dragons and wizards and silly outfits and widdly guitars, this one does.

Bands like Turisas are trying to revitalise the genre, calling it “Battle Metal” and using things like accordions and violins to bolster the sound, but it’s the entirely fictional subject matter that many can’t get on with and while that is still prevalent for bands like Falconer, they aren’t going to break down those boundaries between metal fans.

A solid album for power fans, but everyone else should avoid and check out power bands with wider appeal, like Primal Fear first.

“ smatterings of medieval folk ”

Tracklist: Northwind / Waltz With The Dead / Spirit of The Hawk / Legend And The Lore / Catch The Shadows / Tower of The Queen / Long Gone By / Perjury And Sanctity / Fairyland Fanfare / Himmel Sa Trind / Blinded / Delusion / Home of The Knave / Black Tarn

Written by Andy Lye
More: Albums, Power Metal, Falconer