Ensiferum – Self-Titled – Climbing the Highest Mountain – 9.9/10
Ensiferum’s self-titled first album has, quicker than any album before it, become one of if not my single favorite album of all time. Almost everything that a band can do right in my eyes has been done on this album. The fun songs are fun, the emotional songs are emotional, the heavy songs are heavy – everything is pushed to the max and done as well as humanly possible. Ensiferum have composed song after song of simultaneously rocking, complex, catchy, and hard-hitting tracks and the good is so good that highlighting any weakness almost makes me feel like a bad person. Truly, this album can only be described as an accomplishment of greatness almost unparalleled in it’s thoroughness. I’d like to go through each of the album’s twelve tracks to make sure I highlight every strength and weakness within, as without very careful analysis I wouldn’t be able to find anything negative to say about this album at all.
Ensiferum kicks off with an intro that is momentarily off-putting with it’s strange, sharp keyboards cutting across the silence, but then each instrument starts to fade in and create a stirring melody. Before long, there is a mystical folkish melody floating about that gives the image of vikings on a dragonheaded ship sailing through a picturesque sea as they approach the lands where their quest begins.
This immediately segues into Hero in a Dream, an ultimate combination of fun and heavy folk and death metal elements. The pace alternates between fast and adrenaline rush with catchy, perfect riff changes and a chorus that has one headbanging with fury but unable not to sing along. Halfway through we are treated to a brilliant folkish breakdown that is a noticeable change but does not diminish the pace of the song in the slightest. The only nitpick I have about this song is an odd out-of place tempo change when the ’slash of the golden sword’ bridge comes in at semi-random and doesn’t seem necessary, though once I got used to this I didn’t mind it at all.
We then get a beautiful, almost cinematic opening into Token of Time, a song that gallantly depicts what can only be imagined as a journey. The verses have a music only comparable to horses galloping on the fields which are intersected by interludes of flutes and acoustics as well as epic choruses mentally depicting the awesomely epic horseback scenery one might associate with any great adventure story. After a wicked-awesome solo, a faster paced battle-scene type riff progression kicks in and it is literally fucking impossible not to headbang regardless of where you are currently positioned. The song’s end is a perfect ‘I just killed the final boss’ moment.
Guardians of Fate is the album’s fastest and most intense song that will tear the listener right out of their seat. I cannot recommend enough that this song be listened to while driving fast down the interstate. The lyrics are absolutely perfect and background riffs plus increasingly intense drums make the song constantly escalate to new levels of action. By two-thirds of the way through the song the chorus finally kicks in and the fucking check is cashed – the song becomes almost transcendentally awesome. If the rest of the song was intense, it is now utterly consuming and impossible to ignore. I defy you to listen to this song a few times and not at least once go totally fucking nuts.
Unfortunately, this is right about where we hit what I consider to be the only snag on this disk. Old Man is a bit of a lower-tempo song though still too heavy to be a ballad like one of the later tracks. It is the oldest song on the album, having come from Ensiferum’s first demo, and one can’t help but feel that the band wasn’t as much of a songwriting force to be reckoned with at the time. It’s not bad or anything, but it lacks the edge that the other songs. The different pieces of the song don’t feel like they were put together well and the keyboards seem really out-of-place at times. It’s easily my least favorite song on the album to the point that I’m not unwilling to skip it, and the only small mar on the face of this incredible album.
Little Dreamer, which is also considered part two to Old Man, still does reflect a slightly inferior quality amongst the album’s songs, but it is still a damn fun romp. This song may best represent the death and power metal fusion that the band represents, as it has some parts of extremely heavy riffs alongside near-blast-beats strewn throughout. The only thing really making it lesser than other songs on the album is it’s repetitiveness, as it could have easily done with one less bridge-chorus. As I’ve listened to the album more, I’ve grown to like this song more and more for it’s strong instrumentality, so it’s really hardly a weak point if at all.
The next song, Abandoned, is the first of what one might consider two power ballads on the album, but if the term power ballad sounds like a negative thing, then prepare to have the meaning redefined for you. Abandoned is a truly amazing song that also contains the album’s longest and most epic instrumental segment. It starts off fast and heavy and gets into an admittedly pretty cheesy slow verse, but it only makes the heavy chorus that much more emotional and incredible. This leads the second verse to a stronger building-up feeling and the emotion only keeps rising as the song tears into a cool guitar solo followed by a bone-chillingly emotional chorus iteration. Finally, the tempo kicks up to full and we are launched into an epic and moving three-minute instrumental. If you ever thought that the vocals had the strongest emotional edge in folk or power metal, this segment will immediately prove you wrong as crooning guitars depict a sorrowful battle that fades into the cold sounds of winds of death blowing across a bloodstained plain.
The action immediately comes back in full-force with the album’s most testosterone-fueled head-banger, Windrider. Windrider manages an incredible task of remaining completely energetic for an entire five and a half minutes to fully portray an odyssey of one man’s quest against the world. I would also like to mention that the fictional location spoken of in this song, the “Crimson Skygrave”, is the most awesome title of a fictional location in existence. This song is 100% guaranteed to give you the most fun online shooter-game match of your life, as I’ve tested and proven.
Treacherous Gods is a song that pretty much defines the term ‘epic’, at least as much as a five and a half minute song can. It starts with a mystifying guitar intro until a clean vocal cries “The land is silent….” which is answered with the harsh “BEFORE THE STORM!” that kicks off some heavy, intense, and storm-worth guitar work. This song relies heavily on memorable riffs continually becoming more and more epic alongside similarly rising vocals. Some kind of quest, battle, or sailing on a raging sea is certainly brought to mind as the song’s power rises and rises. having heard the song a number of times, I can’t help but feel that it is represented of a mountain climb that eventually peaks into a massively amazing chorus which ensures us of just that. “Time and time again, I witness the birth of a newborn star, I climbed the highest mountain, to find the essence of a new era!” this is truly representative of what Ensiferum has done on this album.
Next is the second sort of folk-ballad of the album and certainly the most emotionally touching song within. Eternal Wait begins with some unforgettable acoustic riffs that can be described as no less that singing straight from the guitar’s very soul. This song is the perfect combination of multiple vocal tracks and melancholy tunes to create a thick atmosphere of despair that invokes many manly tears. I am pretty sure I have actually teared up during this song a couple of times myself. though it may not be the most vivid in drawing mental pictures, it may be the album’s most well-written song and from start to finish it’s grip on my heart never loosens. Truly, truly beautiful. I cannot even imagine how amazing this song would be live (if it’s on that DVD I may have to buy it immediately. Will have to check that.)
And now, finally, we come to my favorite song on the album, and the one that introduced me to Ensifreum in the first place. Battle Song kicks off with a thunderous and amazing bassline and then streamlines directly into an adrenaline-pumping sword-swinging intense battle theme like no other with one of the greatest metal choruses of all time. The riffs are fast and insane, the keyboards are perfectly paced, the bass is actually audible, and the tempo never once drops an inch. On the contrary, at about two thirds of the way through the song suddenly the entire thing fucking explodes. The already hyperactively fast song launches into an all-out chaotic, massive, planet-destroying heavy anthem that tears the Earth out right from under your feet and fills you with the insatiable urge to go batshit insane. I have almost never made it to this part of the song without getting up and thashing like a madman.
The album ends with an oddball song that was apparently originally a bonus track (I guess this changed on the 2008 re-release.) Goblin Dance features an almost outright strange dichotomy of heavy-ass death metal and light, fluty folk dances. The first time I heard this song, it threw me for a loop and I had no idea what just happened, but as I heard it again and again I figured the thing out and it became a prefect thrashing drunken party song. This is the kind of song a pub of drunken vikings would party and dance too. Wicked solos, manly background singing, and all of the elements needed for good fun.
Having pointed out the overwhelming greatness of this album above the small weaknesses, it’s difficult to come up with a proper score. If Old Man didn’t exist, I’d outright overlook other flaws and give the album a perfect 10 but I’m not sure I can do such. It may be a cheap way out, but since I can’t think of a better solution, I’m going to score a 9.9 and leave it at that. This album does not deserve to be thought ill of in any way, and I only give it a 9.9 knowing that I will never likely score another album so generously. I highly suggest you immediately go out and buy this album, especially since it’s recent re-release has made it easy to find and at a normal price.
Originally posted on http://www.metal-archives.com/
