FIRTAN

FIRTAN “Marter”

By Octopi Mills

With another classic painting gracing another album's cover comes another album from another band from the same old scene.

As many metal albums as there are coming out in this cross-genre alone it makes me crass to use such terms, but as John Cash said, there's a reason for the things I have on.

Though always breaching these terraces and hedges into the neighbor's yard, the landscape joins the overgrowth and the hegemony of bad gardening to some and a sprawling fine vineyard to others. The album constantly attacks at you, blasting and bullying you like a young German wire-haired pointer who doesn't want to be chained or penned, yet we all somehow wind up in prisons of our own by the master. Here FIRTAN will be loved by some; there are melodic interwoven sections to grace the hem of the enthusiast and there is the constant gymnastic struggle here in the warring vocal and guitar that dominates the thing. There are beautiful parts to clothe the rugged "European" "extreme metal" sound in the girdled contrast of furry boots and codpiece-

Yes, this much is true...but if you are looking for something that has it's own cohesive identity then this will be a failure to you. In that paradox that some bands can create old things that parrot the past and find a place as a flame keeper, some cannot and can at the same time. This borrowing from Paul to pay Peter or vice versa must be a dangerous thing, as one can see, and I must not get into a full rant or be forced to use the very boring words that this music landed me here to use anyway. One cannot escape using these terms...you know the ones.

But it does have a sort of old school charm and not so much a new approach and there could be a liking here for something new yet paradoxically old; lovers of old Swedish, Norse -melodic- extreme -viking metal...these sorts of things.

AOP RECORDS

FIRTAN