|
Finntroll Concert Review
In this first week of autumn beneath a moon two days past full, the inimitable Finntroll swept through Mokena, IL last Friday night. It has not been too long since their last US appearance, but this show marked my first encounter with the mighty ‘Troll, and since that last tour they have found a new vocalist and a new musical direction. Of coure, Finntroll are humppa-metal now and forever, but their latest album ‘Ur Jordens Djup’ wasn’t quite the standard fare we have come to expect and saw the band taking a more straightforward approach. With these thoughts in my mind it was with some hesitation that I attended this show, but by the evening’s end I would be wholeheartedly won over.
The show was scheduled to begin at 7:00 with local act Fall of Eden, but they didn’t show up or make any contact with the venue until doors opened at 6:00 and were summarily cut from the bill. While this provided some fans at the show fodder for laughter, it also meant that those of us who’d showed up early had another hour to wait until the next band. The wait went quickly, though, with plenty of chatter between the handful of fans at the front of the stage, many of them local supporters of the next band, War Saw.
I’d not heard the name before, but after seeing their set it is a name I’ll not soon forget. So far, although the band have only one EP and a year’s experience under their belt, they’ve still managed to land a deal with local label Beyond the Gates Records, and, obviously, an opening slot on the bill with Finntroll at Chicagoland’s most popular metal venue. While this is a commendable achievement for any local group, War Saw are especially notable in that they have accomplished all this while four of the band’s five members have yet to graduate from high school.
With that said, War Saw’s music is by no means like most high school upstart phenoms, most notably Job For A Cowboy. Instead of the expected metalcore, this group draws more from Iron Maiden’s harmonized leads and Children of Bodom’s power-death fusion, featuring harsh, high vocals over an up-tempo and melodic foundation. It’s not the most uncommon of styles, but there are blessed few who can play like War Saw do, especially at such a young age.
The band took the stage at 7:50 to remarkable applause. The venue was by no means full at this point, but the reception that War Saw received was the most attentive and enthused that I can recall seeing in quite some time. The band did still look a little nervous, though, despite the encouragement, and the extra height of the stage didn’t make them look any older than their teenage years.
Fortunately, when the set began they settled into their groove rather quickly and stuck to it. Bolstered by the chants and support of the audience, their half-hour set was engaging and also a little surprising, including some impressive lead guitar-work and an enthusiastic cover of ‘The Trooper’. There were a few technical mistakes, and the band’s vocalist doesn’t have the strongest voice for verses (his screams are his strongest asset), but the few hitches only made the crowd cheer them louder and air guitar along with the band. All in all, they are an accomplished group of youngsters with talent and songwriting skills beyond their years, and I look forward to what the future might hold for them.
Following them was the second Chicago band of the night, Urn. I’d heard little of the band before the show and had decided to put off judgment until I’d seen them—now that I have, I’m still not sure what I should think. Their rhythm section looked rather average, but beyond that Urn were a strange group indeed. They feature a female keyboardist—who also wielded a flute and wore a too-slinky black dress—and a lead vocalist/guitarist who sported a renaissance faire apropos vest, knee-high boots, and a homemade cross made of clay and wire looped about his neck. Between songs, he would address us as “brothers and sisters”, and throughout the set would engage in strange, slow-motion lunges as he played.
The collective effort of some fans towards the front to describe Urn’s style resulted in ‘Overdriven power chord meets World of Warcraft meets Cruachan meets Dead Can Dance.’ It was not a combination that went over too well with the audience. For the most part, they were bewildered into silence, and more than a few times had to be prompted to applaud after a song was through. However, they were fairly responsive in a polite fashion, and tried to stay focused throughout Urn’s half-hour despite the overall amateur performance.
Urn’s problem lies mainly with the two aforementioned lead members. While certainly enthusiastic, neither of them possess an especially strong stage presence or singing voice, and the guitarist in particular was inconsistent with his timing and mechanics. With these distractions it was difficult to find much of a bright spot, but the band’s rhythm section thankfully came through with a tight and impressive performance. The bassist provided some strong backing growls that were better than either of the other vocalists and the drummer had some nice subtle touches as well.
However, the negative ultimately outweighed the positive. What’s more, the band’s between song commentary wasn’t too well received by some folks, either, most notably that they were ‘touring’ with Finntroll when they had played only two dates with them, and how Detroit had not been too excited for Finntroll to begin with. When their set ended at 9:10, few were disappointed to see them go.
The next band, Withering Soul, was fortunately able to turn things around before even taking the stage. Despite being unsigned, they have been able to build up a solid local following based on their debut album and are presently looking to release their follow-up. Their style is black metal, mainly guitar-driven, although they do have some keyboard elements that were incorporated through the sound system for the show.
As is to be expected with black metal, they were all clad in black and wearing monstrous boots, drummer aside. Their vocalist in particular took it upon himself to look the part and included his finger-armour rings and custom blue contact lenses in his costume. In fact, both in his appearance and attitude, he seems to take most of his cues from Magus Caligula of Dark Funeral, though perhaps with more of a nod towards the goth scene and less towards overt Satanism. He certainly does have the large stature needed to emulate Caligula as well as the prodigious lung capacity, which he used primarily for high shrieks, with some growls, moans, and a handful of dark chuckles tossed in as well.
As much as he did to support Withering Soul’s image, though, the band’s bassist and one of their guitarists did nearly as much to counter it. They both had the long hair and wore the requisite black garb and corpsepaint, but their general look and attitude simply wasn’t intimidating. The bassist in particular was culpable, with his flamboyant horn-throwing, innocent smiles, and awkwardly timed shouts of “fuck, yeah!” throughout the set. It was the vocalist himself, though, who was responsible for the most out-of-place moment of the set, when he shouted to the crowd in an attempt to get them riled up, “Come on! You know this song from Myspace!”
Nevertheless, the band played a solid set that had much of the crowd nodding along. Withering Soul’s style of black metal doesn’t use too many of the characteristic strophic melodies and instead prefers middling pitches and the occasional hints of rock ‘n’ roll cadences. Overall, it wasn’t necessarily music that I would spend much time just listening to, but the effort put into the live performance and the response from the crowd made it decent enough.
Once they were through, the rest of the audience milling about at the bar moved towards the front in preparation for the next and final band of the evening—Finntroll. I’d hoped that the audience members would allow each other some semblance of personal space, should any member of the crowd feel overcome by the urge to dance the polka, yet it was not to be so. Outside of a mosh pit that formed a few rows behind me, there was hardly a inch to move, much less to cut a jig.
This did make for an energetic atmosphere, though, and chants for the band started well before their scheduled starting time and continued through the raising of the banner and the intro track, ‘Gryning’. Nearly the entire audience was screaming for the ‘Troll with arms raised when the band finally emerged, Beast Dominator first and Vreth last. As I’d hoped, the band had dressed for the occasion; most of them wore kilts and nearly all had a face-paint theme of a single black line running down their faces like a root, with Vreth’s extended down all the way to his bare chest. They took a just moment to survey the crowd and wasted no more time, kicking into the first song from their new album, ‘Sång’.
There was the chance that Finntroll’s delicate balance of vigorous harsh vocals and guitars would overpower their frolicking keyboards (or vice versa), but from the outset it was clear that this wouldn’t be a problem. Finntroll’s live keyboardist, Aleksi, may have been a little too soft, but he could still be heard well enough to give the audience something to bounce to.
And were it not for him, Finntroll’s set would have sounded rather severe indeed, as none of the other members showed the kind of jolly antics we associate with their music. Skrymer and Tundra, on the other side of the stage, both played with a very direct, businesslike demeanor and rarely moved from their spots. Closer to my side was Routa, whose attitude was similar to theirs, but he would look up at the audience more frequently and yell at them during the heaviest sections, though his voice was drowned out by the guitars. Behind the kit, Beast Dominator proved his name’s accuracy with an outstanding performance. As equally businesslike as any other member, he performed with a detached grace that almost made his parts look easy. More than a moment’s focus on the drums, though, would prove quite the contrary; he may be involved in slower groups like Rapture and Shape of Despair, but in Finntroll he demonstrates remarkably consistent double kick and quick hands.
And leading them all, fresh in both years and Finntroll experience, was Vreth. I was unsure how well he’d perform as the catalyst for Finntroll’s incomparable atmosphere, but he put those worries to rest as soon as he arrived and never once did they return. His growling voice sounded just as powerful and easily delivered as it did on record and he also managed to pull of material from both Tapio’s and Katla’s eras without issue. Of course, the clean vocal backing choruses that appear on record were missing, but Routa’s occasional help was enough to satisfy.
With the rest of the band so focused and relatively uninvolved it was crucial for Vreth to maintain a connection with the audience. And, in this respect as well as others, he delivered in a way that had the audience’s males banging their heads and the women batting their eyes, literally. One middle-aged woman in the front row actually reached up to touch his crotch after gazing at him for most of the set with mouth agape, and on my other side were a younger pair, not as forward but no less entranced, who sighed practically every time Vreth walked by.
As it happened, that was quite often. Before the stage was a row of amplifies that he stood on quite often, bringing him so close to crowd that his sweat dripped directly down onto the lens of my camera. He spent most of his time in a designated area like the rest of the band, and each foray to another part of the stage was concluded by a return to his mike stand to lean on it and pose. As befit his position, he did a fine job combining the burly aggression of the band’s appearance with the capricious themes and melodies that endear them to so many of their fans.
Although Vreth’s inter-song commentary was not too extensive, it did keep the smiles on the crowd’s faces and also laid down a little bit of a plot for the setlist. ‘Kitteldags’, for example, was introduced with the call and response regarding Christians and what we ought to do with them. “Eat them!” Vreth decided, and said, “This song is how you will prepare them.”
And so they continued for their ninety minute set, with an extra ten or so for the encore. All in all, they played 20 full songs, not counting the intro ‘Gryning’. As the set unfolded, I was struck by how many of them were so instantly recognizable and so enjoyable, and I soon began to wonder whether I’ve taken Finntroll for granted and not accorded them the respect they are due. Sometimes, we err in assuming that light-hearted art is not as significant as dramatic art, and we allow tragedy to overshadow levity as the definitive creative works of man. However, neither emotion can be fully appreciated without the other’s contrasting presence. Considering how frequently heavy metal strays to one-dimensional extremes, it is a real reward to see Finntroll employing more thoughtful methods, tongue-in-cheek though they may be. After that evening I found a new appreciation for the band and their music that I had never thought to look for, and now would gladly dance with the ‘Troll any night.
|
|
|
