Nattfold

Finntroll is a collaborative endeavor by six Finnish metallers that combines elements of extreme metal with traditional Finnish music. The results come to us via the 10-track release Nattfodd (translated into English as nightborn), an inexplicable listening experience that most people have never even dreamt of. Labeled as traditional pagan folk metal, Finntroll's distinct style is brutal yet surprisingly bouncy for something so heavy, as tracks like "Trollhammaren" and "Ursvamp" aptly show. Mixing the old world's melodies with today's crushing metal seems ambitious to say the least, yet Finntroll manages to pull it off without embarrassment or awkwardness. While Nattfodd is discernibly different than most other Finnish metal exports, when it comes to being bruising and foreboding, songs on this disc like "Det Iskalla Trollblod" stand up amongst its peers.