ENSIFERUM One Man Army Vinyl (2014) 2LP

Folk metal gets a bad rap from people who've only heard the novelty end of it. ENSIFERUM are not the novelty end. The Finns have been building cinematic, battle-worn, genuinely epic metal since the late nineties, and One Man Army is them at full scale.

Released in 2014 and spread across two records, this is the kind of album that earns the word epic without needing you to take their word for it. Choirs, riffs, clean and harsh vocals trading off each other, the works. It sits in that lineage of Finnish folk metal that takes the folk part as seriously as the metal part, somewhere between Moonsorrow's sprawl and Wintersun's ambition without trying to be either. The 2LP format suits it. This is not a record that needed to be shorter.

Double vinyl, 2LP. 2014 pressing. Import.

Fans of: Wintersun, Moonsorrow, Månegarm

Format: Vinyl LP.