Eldkraft - Shaman

Eldkraft

Shaman

by Manel Lilioth at 20 May 2013, 3:28 PM

The Sweden’s ELDKRAFT releases their album "Shaman" through Metal Blade Records this year, their music is organized as a musical constellation whose primary foundation rests on Epic Metal while drawing experimental influences from ancestral musical traditions of the North and spiritual guidance of its hermetic crafts.

This epic folk project contain ten tracks for 56:05 minutes long with contemporary elements influenced that derive from ancient, ancestral mythology and Scandinavian musical traditions, which molds this band’s sound and imagery. The intro “Gammal Krigare” brings some chanting into play with some epic Viking-esque riffs. It’s about what I expect given the press release pushing that this band is in love with grand material, the guitar solo actually brings in some sorrowful emotion as well, the lyrics are in Sweden which I can’t understand but I can tell how the music reflect the lyrical content performed by rougher harmonization that sometimes doesn’t sound serious, so is “Undrates Tid” sounds like it may be a little faster thanks to the ritualistic styled drum introduction. The clean vocals return, sometimes being off a bit, but it just reaffirms how much better it sounds this way, especially when they go into more operatic terrain. Unlike “Fate’s Door” that immediately had me banging my head to the march-like performance the drums are pushing forward. The slight muffle on the audio gives the guitars a haunting tone during the start, though it changes shortly after. This is carried into the fantastic, somewhat progressive chorus.

When a song starts with a moody guitar performance against some background effects of wind I couldn’t pick up on until the intro ended then you know exactly that you’re listening to “Moder Liv Till Grav” to me sounds like blackened performances with various bridges that try to create an epic vibe. “Granslos Grans" deceived me at the very start. Shortly after the intro, it basically resets itself back to that slower pace with clean singing, but there are additional keyboards at play randomly to push towards that grand scale once more. I’m not into this one at all, mostly because I’ve heard it before. The faster bass kicks are a nice touch though, and the chorus finds a much stronger vocal performance that suits the serious music more than the aforementioned operatic style vocals being attempted. As the song reaches its end, the bass kicks pick up once more, and it fades out incredibly slow. At the end, the album concludes with “Rimthurs”. It’s starting off like a typical Pagan or Viking Metal piece, finding throat singing harmonization against some ambient effects. It’s a very dismal atmosphere, and only perplexes me further. Many of the riffs throughout have given me a slight Egyptian vibe. Shaman is a good debut album but not solid enough to have his own memorable moments but if you’re   into straight forward Nordic inspired Metal, or bands such as TYR or PRIMDORIAL, there are no reason to not at least sample it somehow. Who knows, it may speak more to you than it did to me this time around.