and in other news, battle metal

After a ridiculously hot week, the English weather has crashed back into the more expected damp and cold early winter. Cold enough that I've dug out the polypro's and a jacket. That being said, even at high speed on the bike this morning I was still warm, so it may have been overkill.
Currently in denial over a cold, I blame freshers flu. But it's more annoying than debilitating (again, I have crap man-flu), and it's not like I can get any more grumpy at work.

Wandered down to London last week to meet up with Mr S for our yearly dose of battle/folk metal. A mini-fest called Heidenfest, with 6 bands on the card.
First up were Skalmold, an Icelandic bunch of crazed viking metal. Great stuff and great start to the evening. In keeping with battle/folk/viking metal, all very tongue in cheek and OTT.  It's a bit hard to describe them, so instead have a 10min video....

Is it just me or is Icelandic quite amusing to listen to?  Although the song itself is ace.

Next up were Trollfest who are, apparently, some form of super group for folk/black metal.
Again more fun than a packet full of wobbly jelly. Great stage presence - if you flick through their website, you'll find their singer wearing t-shirt with "fat people are hard to kidnap", which seems to sum up their approach to music.
Oh and big win for Trollfest? Use of particularly non-metal instruments, such as accordions. The world of metal needs more accordions, oh and balilika's, which they also seemed to have.

Here's a video, ostensibly about the making of the new album, but realistically it's a homage to drinking. A lot. Whisky, jagameister, beer ... and heartfelt sentiments such as "if Jesus comes back, we'll kill him again"


SAdly band 3 weren't able to attend, a Russian group called Arkona, who were stuck in France for some reason.
And so to Band 4, Alestorm. We'd seen these guys before supporting Sabaton. Scottish Pirate Metal. Three words that work really well. No really. Lots of pirate shirts and blow up cutlasses present in the audience - always good to see. As expected, they put on a great show. More rum and beer. In fact i like them so much, you're getting two videos.
Mainly as the second one uses a keytar. And much like accordions, metal needs more keytars. Mmm KeyTar.





Finntroll were up next, and with that kind of name, we had high hopes. Sadly the band appeared to take themselves seriously, and we weren't too hooked on them. Oh well. One duffer out of 5 wasn't too bad.
Actually this song seems ok, wonder why we didn't like them. They did, from memory have a banjo which was a good sign...


And finally, the mighty Turisas which Mr S had dragged me to last year. Great stuff. Lots of make-ups bags in the mens toilet by this point, all red and black, in preparation for Turisas. They are a great live band, their leadsinger has brilliant stage presence, and they are the kings of battle metal. Indeed their main song is: Battle Metal. As headliners, I'm giving you two tracks:





Fans were fantastic, lots of dressing up, and lots of chicks. Ahhh metal gigs - if more people made the effort they'd see how much more fun metal is than any other genre. Even black metal (Dimmu Borgir) was a really good atmosphere.

Shortly I'll be heading back to whisky reviews. But I thought a music interlude would be appropriate.

B