Cool Music Weekend #2: Finntroll

Finntroll is the band that introduced me to a whole 'nother world: the weird, quirky, funny, and sometimes very beautiful world of folk metal.

What is folk metal? Folk metal is commonly defined as heavy metal, often black metal or symphonic black metal, that takes some inspiration from folk music, perhaps through using certain acoustic instruments, a folkish beat, and lyrics that derive from 'folk-lore' topics, such as mythology and national history. A lot of folk metal--probably most of it--comes from Europe, specifically the Scandinavian countries. It's a very diverse subgenre and has a lot to offer the discerning and open-minded music fan. Even a person who really doesn't like heavy metal or simply doesn't know what the heavy metal genre is all about might find something to like in a lot of today's folk metal.

Finntroll was my "gateway drug" for folk metal. All I know is that one lonely late night I was searching the Tube of You for some stuff on trolls--probably looking for clips from "David the Gnome", which I watched as a kid. Instead, I landed on Finntroll's "Trollhammaren", which is their best-known song and is sort of a staple at live concerts now. I was getting into heavy metal at the time, but the video was still something I'd never seen before: a bunch of guys (and some gals) eating, drinking, wenching, and warring, and all of them were pretending to be trolls. The band were dressed as trolls and were playing bizarre musical instruments decked out with leather and hemp strings and who knows what else. It was bizarre but all in good fun--and the polka-inspired music was insanely catchy. I became a fan.

But there's much more to Finntroll than just "Trollhammaren". They've weathered the tragic loss of their first guitarist, Teemu 'Somnium' Raimoranta to what is either characterized as a horrible accident or a suicide (I don't know and don't care to speculate) and lineup changes that have seen two lead singers come and go (currently, they're on their third, Mathias 'Vreth' Lilmans) . Through it all, Finntroll has remained Finntroll; a unique, creative, and genuinely talented bunch of guys who like to make good music.

Some fun Finntroll selections:


Their magnum opus, "Trollhammaren" ("The Troll Hammer"), with their second singer, Wilska:



"Vargtimmen" ("The Hour of the Wolf") and "Skogens Hamnd" ("The Forest's Revenge"), with their first singer, Katla, off the album "Jaktens Tid" ("The Time of the Hunt"). "Vargtimmen" is interesting because it is something of a departure for Finntroll, not stylistically, but thematically: it's a cover of a Fenno-Swedish folk song that was originally done with a female singer, in an acoustic folk style. Katla crushes it with his angry vocals and the rest of the band carves it up with their aggressive electric instruments--it's interesting, too, because the song is about a man (or a woman, I suppose, the gender of the narrator is never mentioned) who is involved in a love-triangle and is confessing it to his/her first love. The lyrics reveal a frustration with his/her behavior and a desire for it to stop and go back to the way things used to be. The "hour of the wolf" is symbolic of the dark time of the soul, and also of the power of lust, which is personified as a ravaging animal that is always hungering for more. It's very different thematically from anything else on the "Jaktens Tid" album.





And here's some acoustic Finntroll! They actually did an entire acoustic album, "Visor Om Slutet" ("Songs from the End"), when it looked like their first lead singer, Katla, would be leaving the band due to an incurable throat problem. Katla is not their lead singer anymore, but he is still a driving force in Finntroll, as he wrote most if not all of their lyrics for their new album, "Ur Jordens Djup" ("From the Depths of the Earth"). From "Visor...", here's "Svart Djup" ("Black Depths") and "Under Varja Rot Och Sten" ("Under Every Root and Stone").





And finally, here's some stuff with their new lead singer, Vreth: "Slagbroder" ("Brothers of War"), "Nedgang", and "Ormhäxan" ("The Serpent-Witch"). Their new stuff is a lot more aggressive, more black-metal influenced, and less humorous than previous material, but it is still pretty good ("Ormhäxan" in particular is insanely aggressive and catchy).