Band: Crimfall
Title: The Writ Of Sword
Label: Spinefarm Records
Distribution: Spinefarm Records – V2 - Universal
Release date: March 23rd 2011
Review: CD

Hailing from Finland, Crimfall originally started as a one-man project by Jakke Viitala. The first album, As The Path Unfolds… (2009) was recorded with assistance of session musicians, yet some of them joined Crimfall as permanent member back then, and nowadays we’re talking about a ‘real band’.
This self-produced sophomore album, mastered by Jens Bogren at Fascination Street, is much stronger than the debut. It goes for the sound, the atmosphere, as well as the compositions, which are more professionally written and performed. And most of all: this is much heavier than before.
Crimfall clearly are a band from Finland. That’s a certainty. Like tens of fellow country colleagues, the mixture of Folk and Black Metal comes with predictable and safe elements. But…
I am sort of allergic to most of these pathetic bands, using nothing but clichés to sound like any other band. There are several exceptions, however - think about Moonsorrow, for example, with a splendid new album - review posted last month, on April 17th.
What makes this band ‘better’ than the major part, well, reasons are legio. Crimfall do not just mix Black and Folk Metal. They combine it carefully, they create a firm marriage between both styles. And besides, this band goes way beyond just a mixture of those two related genres. The addition of elements from Gothic and Symphonic Metal (not the poppy-emotional version, yet the obscure approach), the splendid female vocals, the bathorian passages, the natural approach, it’s just a modest selection to stipulate this band’s greatness.
No fake Pagan-bullshit, filled with superfluous stupidity, stealing from any band or project that gets known outside Finland’s borders, yet rather unusual, open-minded and thinking out of the box…
This stuff is very varying in many aspects as well, created with many intriguing layers, the nicest atmosphere, a killer sound, a perfect balance between female and male vocals, between tradition and e-violence, between shamanistic epic and catchy power, …
For fans of Soulgrind / Gloomy Grim and Moonsorrow / Finntroll.

82/100

Ivan Tibos.