I’ve often found myself at a loss to accurately describe and/or justify my longstanding love of Falconer’s music to my quite disbelieving fellow death metal fans.  Somewhat of an acquired taste even among fans of the power metal genre, they possess a unique ability to craft highly melodic, minstrel-worthy medieval-influenced folk-laced power metal with a class and dignity that can, at times, come off as a tad silly but almost never fails to entertain.  Falconer’s early albums remain their strongest, and despite a slight dip in quality for the two albums that unmistakable vocalist Mathias Blad was absent, they’ve been enjoying a renaissance in sound of sorts since said vocalist’s return to the fold in 2006 on the fantastic Northwind.  Newly released album Armod, the third since Blad’s return, finds Falconer doing an entire album in their native Swedish, and achieving moderate success by trying some surprising new things with their sound while ultimately falling short of the excellence of their past glories.

Immediately apparent as the album opens with “Svarta Änkan” is an enormous increase in the heaviness of Falconer’s sound.  Though this quest into near melodic death metal territory doesn’t exactly carry through the entire duration of the album, it is very gratifying to hear the band really go all out in such a manner.  Unfortunately the later section of the song bogs down a bit when the female vocals are brought in.  Not a new thing for the band, I’m sure some folks really enjoy this facet, but I have a distaste for female vocals in metal bordering on unhealthily violent, and they come into play in several spots on Armod, with the most notable probably being “Herr Peder Och Hans Syster”.  The newfound intensity does manifest again in the wholly unexpected blast beats (!!!) that open “Griftefrid” and in other areas the folk music quotient seems to have been increased, particularly in the brilliant violin-driven instrumental “Eklundaposkan” as well as “Fru Silfver” with its jaunty flute and the excellent riffing that’s long been a Falconer trademark.  Also a staple of the Falconer sound, the soloing on Armod is really spectacular, there are some impressive keyboard melodies, and the performances of all involved are evident of acute musical ability.

There are some downsides to Armod for me however.  After listening to (and enjoying) Falconer’s music for ten years and seven albums, a few of the melodies here start to ring a tad overly familiar, and while Swedish language songs are not at all new for the band, an entire album of them sort of takes away, for English speaking listeners at least, a big part of what makes Falconer’s strongest material so enjoyable: its sing-along-ability!  Who here hasn’t drunkenly belted out the choruses of some Falconer classics like “Royal Galley”, “Enter the Glade” or even “Northwind”  with a comrade in your best Mathias impression???  I understand there exist a couple English language versions of Armod songs, and I’d love to hear them.  A VERY well-written and played album, but unfortunately not the one I’ll be grabbing when I’m in the Falconer mood.

TRACK LISTING

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*Comments:

1.  Svarta Änkan
2.  Dimmornas Drottning
3.  Griftefrid
4.  O, Tysta Ensamhet
5.  Vid Rosornas Grav
6.  Grimborg
7.  Herr Peder Och Hans Syster
8.  Eklundapolskan
9.  Grimasch Om Morgonen
10.  Fru Silfver
11.  Gammal Fäbodpsalm

Total playing time:  49:40

Release Date: June 3, 2011
Label: Metal Blade Records

Falconer - Armod

Reviewer: J. A. Burt

July 6, 2011