Here we have the debut album by Finnish musician Janeski (Janne Karppinen) who previously had been in Elvenscroll for many years before deciding to strike out on his own, literally. Here he provides guitars, bass, vocals, drums/synth programming, mixing and mastering, as he blends black metal and power metal with folk influences. There are seven songs within this 41-minute-long release, and while most of them are new songs some of them were written a while back and have since been refined, so they may have been originally intended for Elvenscroll which he formed back in the 2000’s.
It could be argued that this album is looking back in time, but it is quite possible he is just using the same influences he had when he first formed the band and has gone back to those as that was what he wanted to do originally. But while the production is reasonable on this, it does fall into the trap of many self-produced releases in that it could have done with judicious pruning here and there, and someone not so closely involved recommending there was no need for the repetition, and as always anyone who is not a drummer needs to bring in a sweaty human for that part of the job as there is much more to it than just keeping time and this is an area which is sadly lacking. Take “Metsäiselle Alttarille” for example, we could easily lose the first few minutes of that song as it gives us nothing except sending us asleep before the main course, not what I expect from the terrifying menace which is black metal.
This is not a release to be discounted out of hand, but it will be interesting to see what Janeski does next, as there needs to be a step up in all levels to maintain interest from those interested in the pagan black metal folk genre. 6/10 Kev Rowland
