Folkearth - Fatherland

Folkearth are a truly international band with members from all over Europe and even more amazing the amount of additional musicians they have used on their records, I think I counted some 70 + plus musicians who have worked with them on their albums. Also staggering is that "Fatherland" is their sixth album since they formed in 2004 and their forth album since 2006. I was interested in hearing this album because I heard their last album "Father Of Victory" and found it to be a really weak version of Folk/Viking Metal so I was hoping for big things from this album. I think the amount of recording they have done may be part of the problem for Folkearth, the term "quality control" is something they may not be aware of. This album starts out very promising with "Hymn to Zeus" that is hypnotic and somewhat mesmerizing and the following "Braver Than Heroes" is a good piece of Folk Metal but from then on the old problems that existed on previous albums re-emerge. The vocals are too weak, and he doesn’t seem to hit the right notes which for this style seems to be a issue. "Guardian of the bridge" kicks off in a faster, more aggressive style but once again the music is hurt by the weak vocals. The rest of the album follows the same path, some of the actual songs are pretty good musically but the vocals and the production mangles everything. Take the title track for a example, its a beautiful acoustic tune with good keyboard use, an accordion and a whistle. But the weak clean male vocals sound like he’s trying to sing with marbles in his mouth. The use of various whistles, flutes, violins, keys and such is done well enough, and the folk aspect of the music is done in a original manner. Metal-wise it’s also quite listenable. There aren’t any specific riffs that I will remember, but I like what they are trying to do. I went back after hearing this and re-listened to some of their other songs from previous albums and here is something that become very obvious. Production was never the strong point of the multinational outfit’s albums, but it has nose-dived from raw to just plain poor, with the whole thing sounds compressed and lifeless. The vocals on the CD also suffered a big drop in quality, they were never great to begin with but the good singers from past efforts have gone to be replaced with some near-tuneless female wailing and completely ridiculous epic male vocals. Overall this sounds like a slapdash collection of throw-away instrumental passages thrown into fairly pedestrian metal compositions. The songs that work best tend to be those that features the acoustic guitars to take the lead, as the distorted sections are subdued by the weak production and the terrible double-bass sound made from programmed drums. Even the weak vocals manage to struggle through the muddy sound a little better in these songs.I’m sure fans of the band would be happier waiting a year or 2 for a really good bunch of songs rather than an endless, poorly recorded supply of hit and miss material. If they continue churning out albums at their current rate, with the amount of Folk/Viking Metal out there these days, the band runs the risk of becoming little more than a sad self-parody. 4/10
www.myspace.com/folkearth