Finntroll - Vredesvävd (2020)^{Release ID: 23641}

I haven't really listened to Finntroll for about ten years, apart from the occasional blast of the Trollhammaren EP, after being very disappointed by their Nifelvind album, so appproached this album with no great enthusiasm. The fanfare overture opening track didn't reassure me much and my heart started to sink, but more fool me because it's actually a pretty damn good album after that, I would go as far as to say their best since Nattfödd. Finntroll's humppaa-influenced folk metal has a real fun quality to it, one of the few black metal albums you can actually imagine people jigging along to. It's easy to picture the band in a nighttime forest clearing, pissed as farts, dancing around a bonfire to this album. There a symphonic element to it provided by the keyboards and the odd blast or two, but mainly this is just good-time, fun, folk-heavy, black metal and as such is a return to what originally stoked my fondness for the band.