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Týr: Valkyrja
20/09/13 || Ironpants
“We will dine in Hel tonight”
Týr, is not only a god, but also a band from the Faroe Islands known for their semi-progressive folk inspired metal. They are now back with their seventh album. What have they’ve been up to? I read somewhere that singer/guitar player Heri Joensen owns and manages a salmon farm and that takes a lot of time of course. We main landers must have our healthy dose of Omega-3 oils and Vitamin D to cope with the tough city life, and as most other musicians, you have to have dinner on the table right? And if you also are a family father, there is some responsibilities involved. If I were something near a rough, cool dude, I would also move to an island, have a down to earth and close to nature profession. But then again, I don’t release albums either, I only write blabbering texts about them so…
How will this turn out you might wonder? I haven’t really spoken
well of folk-inspired metal and/or power metal for that matter. Am I
turning soft? Or will I crush this with penis jokes and viking
profanities? No, I feel very mature today, so I will stay in the zone of
being professional…you poopy pant. These farao fairy fairies Faroese have actually landed a quite acceptable power metal album, and I will try to explain why.
First of all, Týr has the ability to write riffs and melodies that are not falling over to the happy, cheesy side, even if they are “positive” if you know what I mean? The folk inspired side from which they originate comes from a sensible source and not the “oompa-loompa” corner of history. When I hate on folk metal in general, I visualize acts that are trying to present a picture of vikings and/or knights partying, drinking mead and dancing on a table at the local tavern. That´s not the folklore that Týr are inspired of, no they dig deeper in the archives of history and write music and lyrics that are more earthbound.
As you might have guessed, on this album, they have left their more progressive style and longer songs and make way for a more commercial power metal driven orientation. I´ve seen the band explain this in a rather straight forward manner, where they don’t beat around the bush on the topic “Why?”. They are, in short, fed up with the options given, trying to make their way in everyday life, and wondering why they can’t live on their music? So its´a deliberate decision behind the sound they present on “Valkyrja”. They want to sell more records, end of discussion. And I understand where they are coming from in a sense, it´s their option, but I commend them for being straight forward about it. But where´s the line drawn where you become a sell-out? In my opinion, it´s where you change the style so much, that you don’t really hear the original soul of the band and to be honest, I think Týr manage pretty well with not crossing the line too far (with a few exceptions).
One of the things that make Týr in the clear, is the voice of Heri Joansen. I love the tone of the voice on that guy, he sings in a laid back manner and with a tone that is kind of mesmerizing. I don’t know why really, but when he sings everything seems so obvious. And with that, one of my main problems with power metal singers is in the clear. If were a girl I would stand in the front row flashing my boobs all the time, hell, I promise that I will be in the front row flashing my man-boobs if I see them live. Just listen to the song “Hel hath no fury” where his storytelling voice becomes really apparent. It´s that kind of song that I would hate if they had maxed out with flutes, accordions, midgets and shit. Instead, I get a perfectly told story that I can’t stop listening to. Likewise, in the song “Mare of my night”, we are presented with a explicit story of a mare giving the man of the story a literal blowjob, hence the word nightmare by the way, it originates from an entity that visits you at night performing dirty deeds with your sleeping body. That’s not a nightmare where I come from though, but we are all different. If any other band had pulled this story, it could have been unreasonably cheesy, but they handle it just fine.
There are hints of the old progressiveness here and there though, and the song “Grindavísan” has a section that is great, with Kollias going off the chart in a strange off-beat tempo and a weird drum-stick accentuation. Perfect! Yes, you read it right, Kollias as in George Kollias, the greek drum demon is borrowed here to do the drums. Don’t expect blast-o-grams deluxe here though, he plays very solid and held back, at least in relation to his more well known extreme style. It´s fresh to hear him play in a more basic metal mode.
But there are drawbacks of course, nothing is perfect in this world, and in “The lay of our love” they take a huge misstep and invites Liv Kristine too participate in a sticky ballad that made me stab my ears repeatedly with a glowing hot dagger. And also the song “Fánar Burtur Brandaljóð” is on the edge of being a bit on the greasy side for me. Yeah yeah, they sing it in faroese, which is cool, but it’s somewhere there the folklore bites you in the ass. For some reason they also found it clever to record two covers and included them on the album. One is “Where eagles dare” and the other is “Cemetery gates”, none of them are that great, and it made me wonder about what was going on in the Týr camp?
Well, Týr has made a pretty good transition to the more commercial power metal side and produced a very fine album that even I can appreciate to some extent. The good songwriting and non-cheesy approach gives this some hope for a genre that is totally dead for me. I guess I should thank them by adding 3-4 of these songs to my playlist, but there are too many lows for me to really go over the top on this. If the whole album had been as strong as the first half I would be praying to Týr right now. And if you are into to them, I guess you will love it either way so don’t let the score fool you. You can check out some shit here.
Týr: Blood of heroes – Official video.
George Kollias tracking some drums.
- Information
- Released: 2013
- Label: Metal Blade Records
- Website: www.tyr.fo
- Band
- Heri Joensen: vocals, guitars
- Terji Skibenæs: guitars
- Gunnar Thomsen: bass
- Guest
- George Kollias: drums
- Tracklist
- 01. Blood of heroes
- 02. Mare of my night
- 03. Hel hath no fury
- 04. The lay of our love
- 05. Nation
- 06. Another fallen brother
- 07. Grindavísan
- 08. Into the sky
- 09. Fánar Burtur Brandaljóð
- 10. Lady of the slain
- 11. Valkyrja
- 12. Where eagles dare (cover)
- 13. Cemetery gates (cover)
