Crimfall - Amain album review

Ambitious five-piece attempt to break the Finnish folk metal mould

Cover art for Crimfall - Amain album

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It can’t be easy being a folk metal band in Finland when folk and battle metal is as common as a chilly morning, but Crimfall have delved into the recipe book and come up with “cinematic folk metal”. Imagine an album crammed with epic choirs, a lung-busting female vocalist, a gruff sidekick, a few fiddles and rolling thunder. There isn’t a lot to warrant the ‘cinematic’ tag except for the odd stylistic twist during The Last Of Stands where it goes a bit Star Wars-y, but Amain is very epic. The four-part Ten Winters Apart is the centrepiece; forgive the cheesy spoken intro – this 15-minute opus soon evolves into an outpouring of Helena Haaparanta’s operatic vocals while Mother Of Unbelievers mashes thrash and Eastern vibes to good effect. A bit of the less-obvious stuff and Crimfall will do well.

Holly Wright

With over 10 years’ experience writing for Metal Hammer and Prog, Holly has reviewed and interviewed a wealth of progressively-inclined noise mongers from around the world. A fearless voyager to the far sides of metal Holly loves nothing more than to check out London’s gig scene, from power to folk and a lot in between. When she’s not rocking out Holly enjoys being a mum to her daughter Violet and working as a high-flying marketer in the Big Smoke.