Moved to Wordpress

I decided to move this blog over to Wordpress. Although it's necessary to pay Wordpress if you want to customize your page template, I generally prefer the features over there.

Thanks for reading.

Genetics of Viking Metal, Part IV: Finntroll

As I wrote last week, I hear Viking metal as a collection of overlapping hybrid genres. The basic idea is that metal bands are adding some kind of “Viking” element to heavy metal music. Different artists have taken different approaches. Bands add one or more of the following elements: traditional melodies or rhythms, acoustic instruments (sometimes synthesized), and lyrics influenced by Norse mythology.

Metal itself is quite diverse. Because the metal bands can start from a number of places before they add their different Viking influences, there are a variety of sounds that can reasonably be called Viking Metal. I will illustrate this with a few case studies in my next few posts.

A friend of mine who knows a lot about extreme metal mentioned Finntroll to me, so let’s start with their CD, Jaktens Tid. I chose that CD because it happened to be in stock at my local record store.

The CD starts quietly enough, with ominous snythesizer and drums. There might be some faint chanting. There are some snyth horn calls too. If I made a b-movie about dawn before a big Medieval battle, I would want something like this.

When the second track gets going, we get a fast menacing riff on piano followed by guitar. The drums are actually playing a disco beat. The whole thing sounds like Rob Zombie if we were going to reference someone who a lot of people might have heard of. The vocals enter with a "hi-yaa!" that reminds me of a bear practicing Kung-Fu. The signing is in Swedish, if you could call it singing. It's really more like growling. If you listen to death metal, you know what I'm talking about.

The lyrics are helpfully printed in the booklet and a tall, blonde friend of mine confirmed that they indeed are Swedish. In North America, we think that Swedish is kind of a sing-songy language--nothing to fear from the cheeseheads, right? Singer Katla really does sound like a troll-the kind of troll that lives under bridges and eats little children. Not the kind with the fluffy hair they used to sell at Hallmark stores that my little sister used with her Strawberry Shortcake dolls.

Numerous sources state that Finntroll sings about Norse mythology, especially trolls. I am reluctant to translate any of the lyrics. The music is so picturesque; I almost don't need to know the actual lyrics. (Also, I am reminded of Yes, whose lyrics I used to know by heart even though I had no idea what any of the songs were about. Besides "Don't Kill the Whale.")

Back to track 2... There is an instrumental break in the middle with double-time accordion that is joined by guitar. We get 16th notes on the kick drum. This breaks down into a folk-influenced melody on relatively undistorted guitar with acousitic guitar in the background. Katla gives us some whispers and growls, while a keyboard choir builds. That is a lot of ideas for one song.

Track three is led by the accordion with an very fast Oompah beat. In Finland, this rhythm is called humppa and it all over this CD.

Let's get a taste of non-metal humppa.


Now let's hear Fintroll's humppa.


It is the use of the humppa that sets Finntroll apart from other rock bands. This is just a continuation of the trend I wrote about a few days ago. Just as Fairport Convention added traditional British elements to the then-current folk-rock trend, Finntroll is bringing their country's traditional music to now-current heavy metal.

Finntroll also employ a style of singing called Yoik. On first hearing, it could remind one of Native American singing. It’s actually a traditional style of people indigenous to Lapland, called the Sámi. (Search for yoik at the Finnish Music Information Centre for more info. Search for yoik on their music player too.) Yoik isn’t integrated as thoroughly as humppa. It’s more of a coloring. To summarize, Finntroll makes unique and very interesting music. It might be too energetic for many people, but the folk elements could also appeal to adventurous folks who don’t always enjoy death metal. The major elements in their style are:

• Fast and aggressive death metal
• Occasional atmospheric sections with synthesizer
• Real or synthesized acoustic instruments, such as accordion and wind instruments
• Humppa
• Growled vocals
• Yoik

They will tour the US this summer.

Gotta love AdSense

I've got to take a quick detour to show this off. Followers of my blog might have enjoyed watching Google AdSense try to figure out what "context relevant" ads to display. I just looked back at my last post to remember where I left off and got a big kick out of the ads on display. Check this out:




It's really just what I wanted. They have ads for online metal radio and PCR arrays. You need them to sequence DNA. The ancestry test is relevant too.

Man, they are good.

Genetics of Viking Metal, part 3: Musical Precedents

It's time to talk music. This is going to be a little messy. Hopefully not Courtney Love messy, but we will have to wait and see.

I will skip the general rock & roll overview. All we need to know is that rock's ancient roots are in Africa and Europe. In pop culture, things get old in just a few years, so a few hundred years ago is musical antiquity.

Viking Metal is an odd beast. People describe it as a sub-sub-genre of several different types of heavy metal music. I spared you the technical details of gene copying. We can also skip delving into the different branches of heavy metal. RNA and black metal are interesting topics but not necessary for this discussion. All we need to know is that there are several types of heavy metal.

Viking metal really is an overlapping group of hybrid genres. Simply put, metal bands have added Scandinavian musical ideas or Viking-influenced lyrics to already existing types of metal. The bands start from different places and chose different “Viking” elements to add to their music, so the results vary. What they all have in common is that they have added some kind of Scandinavian or Germanic influence to some kind of non-mainstream form of heavy metal. I will describe a few bands in more detail later.

Because many of the artists are from Scandinavia, Viking metal can be seen as a process by which people add elements of their own culture to rock and roll. In this context, Viking Metal has a number of precedents. I will enumerate a few of them.

The Band (1969), the second album by The Band, added many older North American folk and country influences to what was happening in rock at the time. Their first album, Music From Big Pink, contains some of this even in the inner gatefold artwork, but The Band really feels like it comes from another era. The standard guitar-bass-drums-keyboards rock instrumentation is occasionally augmented by an old-fashioned-sounding horn section and mandolin. Many of the songs address older themes, such as westward expansion, the Civil War, farming, and even retiring to a rocking chair in “old Virginny.” One thing to keep in mind is that The Band’s old-timey songs are really great, but they don’t really rock the way some of The Band’s other tunes do.

As told in record producer Joe Boyd’s excellent book White Bicycles, The Band discouraged a British folk-rock group Boyd was producing. Fairport Convention had been playing American-influenced folk-rock and realized they could never do it as well as the Band did. The death of their drummer gave them another reason to reject their original repertoire. Their next album, Liege & Lief, adds traditional British influences to their folk-rock sound. Like, The Band, even their original compositions seemed very old-fashioned. In the opening track, singer Sandy Denny refers to her band mates as “minstrels.” The album contains two long versions of traditional ballads. Young British folkies had been playing traditional songs for more than a decade. Fairport’s approach was different because they played electric instruments and it rocked. The music wasn’t as heavy as Black Sabbath or Blue Cheer, but there definitely was a weightiness to it.

In 1977, strong Celtic influences appeared in Jethro Tull’s formerly bluesy hardish prog rock sound. The song titles say it all: "Songs From the Wood," “Jack in The Green,” and a December favorite of mine, “Ring Out Solstice Bells.”

Jethro Tull’s 1982 song “Broadsword” certainly points the way to Viking Metal. Metal fans who are still upset that Tull beat Metallica for the first Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance Grammy award in 1989 might think I am nuts.

I can’t use anything like mitochondrial DNA to prove my point, but I can turn to other evidence. First, listen to the song itself. The audio on this video is the same as on the LP/CD.



What is the song about? Preparing the defenses for a Viking raid. It begins with the same atmospheric keyboards and ominous drums you can find on “Krig (Intro)” , the opening track on Finntroll’s CD Jaktens Tid. The guitar is fairly distorted (remember this is 1982). If you check out the guitar solo, it’s pretty metal, with the artificial harmonics and fast shred-like passages.

I hear the similarity, but my argument would be a lot more persuasive if Viking Metal musicians recognize it. Cris and Stewart of Svartsot list Jethro Tull as an influence or favorite band. (Check their bios.) Svartsot call themselves a Folk Metal band. I will explain why I lump them in with Viking Metal in a future post.

The Pogues did a fantastic job of combining traditional Irish music with punk rock. I like their first three or four albums the best.

Musicians in Asia and the Middle East are bringing their own culture into western dance music. Six Degrees and Putumayo are two US record labels that have plenty of interesting compilations to explore. Look for compilations with titles like Asian Groove to find what I’m talking about. Any connection between these musicians and Viking Metal is obscure, but it is interesting to note that this phenomenon exists outside the west.

Next up? I’m not sure yet. Maybe further exploration of metal or a look at pre-historic human migration.