| ||
Track Listing: Rated: Total Play Time:  |
Ah, what to do with the pro-Aryan Metal movement? It just doesn't seem to be going anywhere new these days, does it? Aryan pride music has been represented in Black Metal, Death Metal, Folk Metal and Viking Metal circles, so is there anywhere it can go now to that is hasn't gone before to spread its "message" to a different and potentially larger crowd? Well sure there is! Power Metal, of course! Mixing a lyrical message like this with Power Metal, a genre of Metal where it seems that everyone seems way too happy and loves everyone else on the planet, may seem odd to you, and you'd be right to think that! But in Finist's case they managed to make it work extremely well on their newest album "Awakening"!
The music of Finist is simply pure Power Metal mixed with a tiny bit of 80's Traditional Metal. I'm not usually a fan of the Power Metal genre myself, but since this is mixed with Folk music I really found myself enjoying the overall sound "Awakening" has to offer. The band uses a variety of traditional instruments such as floaty synth parts, pianos, violins, clarinets, trumpets, flutes, acoustic guitars and sopilka to help create their Folksy atmosphere, and they use these instruments with great effect! The final result is extremely epic and "proud" sounding, if you get my drift. The fact that the music of Finist is so Folky should be as no surprise when you consider the band has two ex-members and one current member of Nokturnal Mortum amongst its ranks. The vocals are going to be hard to describe here, but I'll try my best. Most of the time the vocals are in a total raw and harsh Black Metal style, and these are great. The harsh vocals quite honestly work well with the Folk and Power Metal music they play. There's also some great clean Folk singing on the album as well that I found myself enjoying. But... there's also an overdramatic clean style the band uses that is so frigging horrible that it's laughable! No shit, this vocal style, like what is used on the track "Time Has Come" sounds like a long lost Muppets song from the 1970's! It's so bad that it's... well... not good, but interesting! The lyrics revolve around just what you'd think a band into Aryan Pride and Nationalism would write about. I.E. White pride, hate and nature. A lot of people that have heard Finist have said they are probably one of the most racist bands out there, but I disagree. I just think that since they are one of the few of these types of bands that sing in English, people especially in the U.S. and other English speaking countries take more notice. The production on the album is great, and is in fact better than the productions on any of the Nokturnal Mortum albums. The cover art used for "Awakening" kicks all kinds of ass in a nature oriented sort of way.The cover shows a field that slowly meanders its way up to a mountain range. It may sound simple, but it's quite stunning to look at, especially if you're a fan of Mother Nature like I am. The inside of the booklet has even better photos of natural landscapes within it. Some of the highlights include a photo of a stream in the middle of the forest that is dotted with trees that are in the full color of Autumn, a photo of a forested mountainside and a photo of the deep forest that has sunlight shining through the tree limbs and leaves. I'm sure all of these photos were taken in the band's native Ukraine, and all of them are beautiful. If you can get past the laughably bad clean vocals that appear periodically on this album, and if you have no moral objection to White Pride lyrical themes, "Awakenings" should be an album most fans of Power, Black and Folk metal fans will enjoy. This is definitely one of the more unique Folk Metal albums I've heard in a while, and despite its cheesiness I still find myself listening to it quite often. | |
