Reviewed - 05/21/04

Wintersturm
[Irond Records]

Ever since I was a little kid and went to the various parades in my little town, I've loved watching those guys with the bagpipes and drums marching past me in procession to the beat of their folky music. That was the main reason I wanted to go to those parades, and they are probably one the earliest influences on me that made me come to love folk music as much as I do. In my eternal quest to seek out and listen everything on the planet involving folk music, I have come across only a very few bands that incorporate the bagpipes into their music. Most of the time if a band uses the bagpipes, it's very sparse and used just as a background effect. Germany's Wolfenmond uses the bagpipes HEAVILY on their newest album "Wintersturm", and I just can't get enough of it.

What do I mean by "heavily", you ask? Well, put it this way: They have not one, not two, but three bagpipers! The bagpipes on this album dominate over everything, so if you are a fan of bagpipe music, you definitely will love this. Wolfenmond incorporates a whole slew of other traditional instruments too, but the one constant thing is the bagpipes. All three pipers at times will play together and it truly is something to hear. I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to bagpipes, but there seems to be different versions of that instrument playing on here because some of the pipes seem higher in pitch than others. I don't know, maybe there's bass, tenor and alto bagpipes that I've never heard of. Haha... The booklet is entirely in German, so I can't make out what instruments all are played on there, but there seems to be no less than fifteen of them, and that's pretty outstanding. The drums are very medieval sounding and have a sort of tribal beat that is very catchy. Traditional handheld and kettle style drums are used instead of a traditional drum set up, and it works well and makes the music sound that much more authentic.

"Wintersturm" is mostly an instrumental album, but there are a few choral styled vocal parts intermingled here and there with the music throughout the album. The vocals are very good using both male and female vocals, but don't expect a lot in terms of quantity of vocals if you decide to pick this up because there's just not much there to be had.

All of the wonderful sounding instruments come through like a breath of fresh air due to a phenomenal production. At high volume, some of the higher pitched instruments can slay your ear drums, but that is the fault of the instruments and not the production.

The packaging is very professional looking and includes everything that I think each and every album should include. The cover is a kickass painting of an ancient castle in the midst of a snowstorm. Oh, how I wish it was winter again (Sigh). What little lyrics there are on the album are printed within the booklet, and there are also some neat pictures of the band members and various nature scenes. Also, the bands numerous contact infos are found on the back of the booklet. This is something you'd think every band would want to have included on their albums, but for some reason a lot of bands leave that information out.

"Wintersturm" is an album that really is like no other out there in the medieval folk realm. The premise of all the bagpipes might sound odd or goofy to some, and even when you first here it it sounds a little bizarre, but it grows on you big time. This album is released on Irond Records which is a metal label, so you can rest assure that this album will appeal to at least some metal fans even if they don't consider themselves a fan of medieval music at all. As an added bonus to the fourteen tracks worth of music found on the album, there's also a nearly fifteen minute "hidden" track at the end of the album that is an audio theatrical style play complete with a large cast of characters and sound samples. An acoustic guitar breaks up the scenes of the play and even though it is entirely spoken in German, it is a pleasure to listen to. This play pushes the album's running time to nearly 70 minutes and gives any fan of this genre yet one more reason to run out and buy the album as soon as possible.