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Finntroll: Jaktens Tid Folk metal, Humppa Century Media Records, Spikefarm Records September 18th, 2001
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Review
When a band mentions the name Finntroll to a metal community, everyone, for some reason or another, becomes divided. Many side with the band and find their material to be highly enjoyable, and then there are those who look at this band as some kind of creation that should have immediately been aborted in the first trimester. This is only after the band's first full-length release, too. Jaktens Tid marks the group's second full-length studio album, and while it's a good album, it is far from the masterpiece everyone makes it out to be. First of all, Jaktens Tid takes a little while to pick up. "Krig" is an introductory track which the average listener will just skip right over. It doesn't do anything to set a tone for the album, or introduce the material in any way, and winds up just being a pointless waste of two minutes of your life. Then you are greeted with the rather bland and uneventful song "Födosagan". After this point, the music does seem to pick up, with "Slaget Vis Blodsälv" really introducing keyboards that are effective to the music, as well as the title track, "Jaktens Tid" being where the music becomes solid. At this point, the Humppa music really takes hold and is mixed well against the more Folk inspired Metal the band produces, and the somewhat out of place keyboards. Aside the introdution track "Krig" which, as stated, doesn't do much for the album, there's another instrumental track present on Jaktens Tid. THis goofy track does well with setting a new tone for the album, having music that would remind someone of elves performing mischief late at night. To put it in other words, the track is goofy and manages to go well between "Jaktens Tid" and "Kitteldags", with these three tracks making up a good chunk of the impressive music off the album, even though "Kitteldags" is a bit of a stretch for that term. "Kyrkovisan" is another track that really stands out, as it's a very heavy and really fast paced song, and really gets your ready to go face first into the real meat of the release. "Den Hornkrönte Konungen (Rivfaders Tron)" is jut a heavy song with a strong Humppa presence, and "Aldhissla" is a rather enjoyable slower paced track, bleeding into "Tomhet Och Tystnad Härska" to give the album a proper instrumental outro that is very suiting for the release, but actually gives off a bit of an eigties fantasy film feeling. This track also has a bit of a hidden track that is a non-metal Humppa track in the vein of Finntroll, silly as all hell, but yet so toe-tappingly catchy thanks to the banjos, tuba, and nonsensical lyrics and vocals. Really, there's only one bad song on Jaktens Tid, and that would be the rather boring "Födosagan". Outside that, you have your clusters of really impressive tracks laid against clusters of songs that aren't too bad but could have used a little more work in all aspects. This release had the possibility to be something big, especially with tracks like "Kyrkovisan", but instead the album is infested with a mediocre sound that simply won't be enough for people to really sit down and come back for plenty of repeat spins.
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