Search - Turisas :: Battle Metal

Awesome Cheesy Viking Battle Metal!!!!

Mike Wright | San Jose, Ca | 05/04/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I just recently bought this record and i love it for the most part. Everything about this band is over the top, including the awesome band pictures inside the cd booklet that shows them covered in blood, fighting in an ancient battle.



These guys are the Rhaphody of the Viking Metal genre in the way that every song is way over the top with it's orchestration, lyrics, vocals, etc...It is super cheesy and super awesome at the same time. I absolutely love the first two full songs and i like the rest of the record, but there are a few weird songs that dont really click with me too well.



This is a really fun metal record. It is a great mix of blackened vocals, power metal guitars, galloping drums, and a huge mix of synths, horns, keys, accordians, and violins. The vocals are all over the place with growls, blackened screams, high power metal wails, spoken word, gang vocals, beerhall chants, and awesome battlefield vocals that sound like they are being shouted to the listener by someone actually in the midst of battle.



This band isnt too be taken lightly, but are also not to be taken too seriously. They are meant to be fun and cheesy, so grab a pint, put on your gauntlets, and grab you sword!"

Masterpiece Work of Viking Metal

S. Morales | Levittown, NY United States | 02/13/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Turisas's debut album really gives the typical Viking Metal fan of epic bands like Ensiferum, Falkenbach, Tyr and Heidevolk something new, different and refreshing. To label Turisas on this first effort as simply 'Viking Metal' I feel doesn't do it justice, because overall the album is so versatile and free thinking, that this tends to explore various realms of heavy metal such as progressive metal, hard rock, and power metal, yet it all still comes back to the foundation of what we recognize as Viking Metal. Anyone who's also heart Turisas' 2nd album will quickly notice how the band has swayed greatly from such a progressive stature to fit a more mainstream epic sound, with heavier guitars, more profound synths, acoustics, heavier vocals, and an overall louder sound.

Most songs on here average around 6 minutes, yet many songs tend to break in tone and mood throughout, making them feel longer than they are, and also inject some of the most amazing and fantastical viking metal melodies I've heard in a long time. The band seems to have everything at its disposal, from woodwinds, to accordions, orchestrations, synthesizer, chants, female vocals, etc. A lot of effort went into the songwriting on Battle Metal and it shows. One thing I was surprised at when first listening to the album was how "tame" it seemed to be, and by that I mean, the guitars aren't what I was used to on typical viking metal. The distortion wasn't cranked way up and this was probably the "softest" viking metal albums I've heard - the band I'm sure makes these songs sound heavier when playing live, but here the production tends to keep things in check. For good reason too, which is that the band on this album wanted to make something atmospheric, melodic and heavy (of course, they are a metal band), but absolutely everything is almost strictly kept to a level of sophistication that I was surprised to hear. The band did not seem to want to necessarily only tailor towards t-shirt and jeans-wearing college headbangers, but also gain the respect of more mature classical music fans. This is sort of like Viking Metal written with the aid of a band like Dream Theater. This is a good thing, because we are treated to some great riffs, epic yet solid choruses, diverse songwriting that may use choruses, but don't stick to formulas anywhere else. As you can see from the straightfoward album cover, there are no cartoonish viking ships or warriors drawn on it, but it looks very much like it could've been an album released by an adult-contemporary artist. This is the first clue in that this isn't your typical viking metal album, it's smarter than that.



The only problem with this that I felt was that since the songs come off as so complex in their writing, it was sometimes difficult to tell where one song was ending and another one beginning. Also, the breaks sort of kept the entire album in the same atmospheric realm. Hence you won't get one song that is all slow or all fast, all ballad or all distorted. While each song was diverse and the style of music was definitely incredibly unique, within Battle Metal itself, the entire album never really seems to take you anywhere new as a whole.



Still, if you came to know Turisas through their second album, it's a great idea to pick up this one only to see where they came from, you'll just need to open your ears a little more and play the album a few more times before you can really adjust to the change. Because again, it's a more sophisticated run of Viking metal."