Battle Metal and a Walk in the Snow

It's snowing right now in New York; thick, heavy flakes that pour from the sky in a torrent of individual fluff. When I left work to go to class, I decided to walk the half-hour from office to school instead of taking the train, inspired in part by the unworldly beauty of a snowfall. Beauty in the streets of Manhattan is a rarity and I suspect that one of the reasons why I live here is because the few interruptions in the pervasive ugliness are that much more enjoyable in their few short moments.

However, I did have some additional motivation: serendipity dictated that it was time for me to cycle through another album to listen to during my trip. Scrolling through the list of artists, I came across Turisas and - imagining "To Holmgard and Beyond" in my ears - I put on The Varangian Way.

Inspiration comes in odd forms. As I left the building, the call of the wild-in-a-bottle storm and the music's story of a man going on a quest of discovery steered me away from the close comfort of the subway and out into the snow, where I gladly toiled - displacing myself into the frozen ropes pulling a longship in "Portage to the Unknown" - along the blocks across town. As I walked, I gradually sank into thought, jumping from the story in The Varangian Way to the vagaries of my own situation.

I use music the way others use drugs: if I focus on a song in the right way, I can channel all kinds of powerful emotions: anger, sadness, ectasies of power and ectasies of joy. Recently, it seems that the music that's attracted me most is gloomy and atmospheric, conjuring up dark coniferous forests and the struggle of the single man against the enormity of unfeeling nature. There is individual heroism in these songs, there is the wildness of communing with the animal within, but there is also an enormous sense of fatalism and the knowledge that one person cannot win against the tide of life. Morbid perhaps, but hauntingly beautiful at the same time.

Reflecting on this trend, I worried at first that I was just now discovering subconcious feelings of unfulfilled desire, brought on by my increasingly practical mode of living, but further probing revealed the truth: it's just fear. Fear for what's happening to the institutions of our economy, fear about the future of my own employment, fear that I'm powerless to stop any of the forces moving the world around me with strength of titans. It's irrational to be sure, but it's there - and it's hiding in my thoughts, waiting for a walk among the furies of nature to surface.

My Wife, She Understands Me

In response to the comments section of this article:

Me: Ohhh...
Nikki: What?
Me: Someone made a reference to Turisas in the comments section. They have a song about Rasputin; the chorus goes "Ra! Ra! Rasputin!"
Nikki: I can't believe you just made that sound over that. It sounded like someone showed you a picture of a puppy.
Me: Yeah, a pagan metal puppy...
Nikki: [laughs] Write that down.

Rethinking Victory Songs

I was going to use the word "apology" somewhere in the title of this post, but I see that I never bashed Ensiferum (in this blog, anyway) outside of my comments on their Paganfest performance. I've been trying to be more organic in my listening patterns lately, selecting those albums with whatever song has gotten stuck my ear today, rather than forcing myself to listen to something new or relatively new or otherwise not sufficiently explored (have I mentioned I'm a little odd about my music geekery?). This change has resulted in some self-perpetuating selections - I listened to nothing but Ihsahn, Emperor, and Opeth yesterday because I woke up with portions of "Depraved" running through my mind - but it's also led to the resurgence of Ensiferum's most recent album, Victory Songs, in my esteem.

I liked Victory Songs enough to hold on to it after I downloaded it, but at the time, flush with the riches of my post-Paganfest discoveries, I couldn't help but feel that Ensiferum was Turisas-lite. Fast forward to this past Friday, when their album cover jumped out from my iTunes list and I decided to give them a second chance. 50 minutes later, I was a fan: the songs are sufficiently epic, the hooks of tracks like "Ahti," "One More Magic Potion," "Raised by the Sword," and "Victory Song" sufficiently strong, the energy sufficiently infectious to get me bopping around the room, dreaming of sword-in-hand victory. As it turned out, the attraction was strong enough to last several days: when I got to work this morning, "Wanderer" was running its way through my head, setting up a reprise and this blog post. Victory Songs might suffer a bit from overreliance on the same set of tools, but I'm glad I hung on to it.

DragonForce at Irving Plaza

Ok, this review should be pretty easy: remember when I said I felt bad for Ensiferum for having to go on after Turisas? Turns out that wasn't a fluke: I felt just as bad for DragonForce on Tuesday night. Here's why, synthesized down to two simple statements:

1. Turisas. Turisas kicked my ass, almost literally. After their set, my throat was a strip of dried leather from screaming and yelling, my legs tottering from jumping up and down, my arms hanging weakly at my sides, shaking in exhaustion from the constant fist-in-the-air pumping. Two days later, my arms still hurt from the short, sweet workout Turisas gave me. I figure if they headline now, they'll just play all of The Varangian Way (not that I'd have a problem with that), but one more album, they should be leading their own tours. They are far beyond ready.
   
   
2. DragonForce. Subsconsciously I knew about this problem before I went, but DragonForce is not the sort of band you want to listen to for more than half an hour. God love 'em, they put on a good show - the wind blowing the hair back dramatically, the keyboard player doing calisthenics while he plays, Herman Li and his guitar solo faces of doom, the drummer who sings along to all of the words - but the music. doesn't. change. At all. One friend compared them to varieties of Chinese chicken: you can have sesame chicken, or orange chicken, or General Tsao's chicken, but in the end, you're basically getting the same thing: chicken with some sort of orange-flavored sauce. Have three courses of that stuff and you'll stop paying attention. Which I did, choosing to skim in and out of the show like a fish jumping in and out of the rapids. Enjoyable enough, I suspose, but not something that I'd want to repeat.

So, to sum up: DragonForce is ok in small doses, Turisas is always awesome and should be headlining their own tours.

Mathias Nygård is the Finnish Dio

Afterwards, I felt a little bad for Ensiferum. Here they were, headlining one of the most consistently excellent shows (opener to closer) I've seen in a long time, and they weren't even close to the best thing I'd seen all night. They weren't dogging things, either, but after Tyr, Eluveitie, and Turisas all worked the crowd into a hopping, dancing, bashing frenzy for some three hours straight, the headliners needed something a little extra - something they didn't quite have - to really push their show over the top.

Not that I'm complaining: Ensiferum's "not quite good enough" still really rocked. But I think the band's problem stems from something they lack; something the other bands, especially Eluveitie and Turisas, had in spades (or maybe spade?): a really strong front man. Petri Lindroos started to get the idea by the end of the set, but either he lacks the charisma or the experience - which seems a little surprising for a guy who's been a professional musician for at least six years - to know how to get a room packed full of people to really move.

Mathias "Warlord" Nygård is another story. The Turisas founder/singer/producer/genius not only has the goods behind the mixing board, but on stage as well. I might mention that I bought the ticket for this folk metal festival specifically to see Turisas, so I had some high expectations; expectations that grew exponentially when I learned the band had decided to include "In The Court of Jarisleif" on their set list, as I was looking forward to celebrating the madness of drinking metal. Of course, they delivered - or I wouldn't be writing about them in such glowing terms - but none of them would have been met without Warlord's masterly approach. About halfway through the set - around when he divided the crowd in half to do some competitive singing - I realized who he reminded me ofy: the great Ronnie James Dio. Not in singing style, or singing ability, because the combination of the crappy BB King's acoustics and his own reticence made half of the singing inaudible, but in sheer showmanship ability: the man just knows how to run crowds. He mentioned at one point that Paganfest was their first US tour, but if they generated that kind of energy every night (and drew the same capacity crowds) I have no doubt they'll be back for more.

One final item of note: As a part of the frenetic pacing of "Jarisleif," I was looking forward to seeing this man rock the accordion solo, but he decided he was going to disappear into the wilds of Amsterdam a few months ago, so Turisas hired Netta Skog, who looks a lot like Elizabeth Röhm, as a stand in. She played the parts perfectly, so the hiring was a good choice, but either a.) she found the spectacle of a few hundred idiots hurling themselves into each other really funny, b.) she was having a really good time, or c.) someone told her you need to look happy on stage, because she had a big grin on under her warpaint the entire time. Looking happy while you're playing is so unmetal.