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Artist: Turisas
Title: Stand Up And Fight
Genre: Folk Metal / Power Metal / Symphonic Metal
Release Date: 25th February 2011
Label: Century Media


Album Review

TURISAS is a Finnish band that was formed in 1997; now with their third album they have reached a peak of their power. Pompous symphonic metal intertwined with electric guitars and traditional orchestrations makes for their music trademark. With that they stand on the secure footpaths of BATHORY and the epic metal of MANOWAR. The part that is welcomed is the music patterns they use, full of surprises, and at times unpredictable. They do not make the mistakes lesser bands or less capable musicians do. Just listen to the ‘Hunting Pirates’, a song influenced by PAZUZU’s ‘In the Tavern’ and you’ll hear how the folk patterns are altered and in a way re-established. ‘The March of the Varangian Guard’ is bombastic in its orchestral parts, a great opening to the whole album, the “Stand up and Fight” has tons of metal in it though it has aspects from ballads (or should I say from troubadours?), and the ending song, ‘The Bosphorus Freezes Over’ is so goddamn melodramatically wonderful.  The result of all this is that they have a sound that cannot be mistaken with anybody else’s music. Oh yes, did I mention the lyrics?

If you don’t care about them you surely gonna love their music and this album. If you do, the problems start. Here we don’t have to deal with the nursery level imagery of MANOWAR or RUNNING WILD (which has fun in its own right), what we have here is that historical facts were turned into lyrics. And since the band in its album promo suggests opening our school books (!) to find out what the Varangians were I can remind them what they had been. They were not just a bunch of thieves and murderers that came South in the 9th century for looting; they actually controlled Kiev; they were the biggest slave traders of the East in those times, in an extent that still resonates in the English language by the correlation of “Slav” and “slave”. Some other songs are about the Byzantine Empire, the political fractions that existed by that time and how the Varangians fought on their side either to control the empire or against the Arabs. Maybe for the latter they have chosen them as the songs will surely be embraced by the neo-Nazis around the world. The whole thing is nothing but neo-Aryan fantasies of heroism and battle suitable to make kids rave-up for war.  

Having watched some of their video clips I have no doubt that they are great entertainers, B-Movie kind; I’m waiting for a Viking opera with men in fishnet suspenders ala Rocky Horror Show and trucks of tissues for the “drama” of their ancestors. If you forget what I’ve said about lyrics, there’s over forty six minutes of unadulterated extravagant fun with their music to enjoy.


Tracklist

01. The March Of The Varangian Guard – 3.51
02. Take The Day! – 5.26
03. Hunting Pirates – 3.43
04. Ventoi! – Prasinoi! – 3.49
05. Stand Up And Fight – 5.27
06. The Great Escape – 4.51
07. Fear The Fear – 6.14
08. End Of An Empire – 7.16
09. The Bosphorus Freezes Over – 5.37


Line-up

Mathias “Warlord” Nygård – vocals, percussions
Jussi Wickström – guitar
Hannes “Hanu” Horma – bass
Tuomas “Tude” Lehtonen – drums
Olli Vänskä – violin
Netta Skog – accordion


Websites

http://www.turisas.com/ / http://www.myspace.com/turisasofficial


Cover Picture

turisas_standup


Rating

Music: 7
Sound: 8
Total: 7.5 / 10

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