Ensiferum was started in ca. 1995 - 96 by Markus Toivonen (guitar), Sauli Savolainen (bass) ja Kimmo Miettinen (drums). In the end of 1996 they were joined by Jari Mäenpää on guitar and vocals. Pretty soon, in the beginning of 1997, Jari had to go to the army and the band froze for a while. Luckily, the service in the Finnish army is not too long and the band recorded their first demo the same year. About 300 copies found their way to tapeplayers across the globe and the response was very promising. At the time, the band drew influences from f.ex. Amorphis and folkmusic. 1998 was the year of a few line-up changes. Jukka-Pekka Miettinen stepped in as the new bassplayer and Oliver Fokin from Arthemesia filled the drummers seat when Kimmo Miettinen moved to Arthemesia. In other words, the bands traded drummers.
In the beginning of 1999 Ensiferum recorded their second demo that was also very well-greeted in the metalscene across the world. Later the same year a third demo was recorded with Janne Joutsenniemi (Sub-Urban Tribe) twisting the knobs at the MD-Studios in Helsinki. This was the demo that landed them the deal with Spinefarm Records. It also got them tons of gigs and it was chosen "Demo of The Month" at f.ex. Noise, Metal Blade and Suomi Finland Perkele magazine. And there's more; the demo even got airplay not only in Finland but also in Sweden and Italy. The band was naturally chuffed...
2 Finntroll
One night in march 1997 two men were sleeping in a rehearsal room in Helsinki. The other woke up and started playing the keyboards and came up with a folkish melody. Soon the other one woke up too. Liking the melody he asked the other guy to play the riff in traditional finnish "humppa" style (humppa is a variety of polka...). This sounded very mean and guitars and brutal vocals were added immediatly. Thus Finntroll was born..
These two very drunk founding fathers were Somnium (ex-Thy Serpent, Impaled Nazarene) and Katla. Almost a year later in January Finntroll recorded their debut demo "rivfader". They were still using drummachine but were already discussing a future adding of other members at least for session musicanship. Soon several musicians stepped into the picture. Drummer B. Dominator (Barathrum, Rapture), Skrymer on live guitars, Trollhorn (Moonsorrow) on keyboards and Tundra on bass. Spikefarm had shown interest in the band and now that Finntroll was a band with several strong musicians the deal was sealed. So there you had it, the record that probably affected the black and folk metal scene for good. The debut album "Midnattens Widunder" contains nine tracks of advanced trollish metal. At last the Finntroll woke up from its long sleep to strike down the followers of the christian plague...
About a year after that, it was the time to take the next step in this trollish crusade and Walltone Studios were once again inhabited by Finntroll. This time the guys knew better what they wanted to do and the session went smoothly and without any problems they encountered on the first trip. The result was an album called "Jaktens Tid". With this album Finntroll took a huge step forward both musically and in overall atmosphere. At last they could say that this was how they wanted to sound like. The album got great reviews all over the world and was praised by countless of people. Finntroll was stronger that ever before. The album managed to climb to 20th place in the Finnish album charts, surprising both band and the label. Soon after that Century Media was attracted by this success and licensed the album for the rest of the world. On that summer Finntroll played in several open-airs both in Finland and abroad.
Beginning from the year 2002 the band hit a string of bad luck, beginning from cancellations of some tours, continuing with the vocalist Katla's worsening throat problems which finally lead to his early retirement from the band. Several shows were made with replacing singers, Tommy Åberg of Bloodshed, Pete Eskelinen of Rapture and Mika Luttinen of Impaled Nazarene. In January 2003 the band realized a long planned project, an acoustic/experimental cd "Visor Om Slutet" with Katla and the new vocalist Wilska (Sethian, ex-Wizzard, ex-Nattvindens Gråt to name a few...) sharing the vocal duties. The album was recorded at a cabin in the woods on the outskirts of Helsinki, with the aid of a mobile studio, sauna and large quantities of alcohol. It was released as a mid-price album, and surprisingly inhabited the no. 1 place of the Finnish Midprice chart for several weeks...
Just before the release of this record, the band met with a heart-breaking blow; The death of Teemu "Somnium" Raimoranta in an alcohol related accident in Helsinki. While recovering from the loss of a dear friend and bandmate the rest decided that ending the band would be an insult to his memory, and decided to honour and grieve him the best way they could, by going on tour and keeping his music alive. The band did a two week European tour in support of Katatonia, and brought in an old member of the family, guitarist Routa who had earlier played some gigs as a stand-in guitarist in Finntroll. During the summer the members spent a lot of time on the road, playing festivals like Graspop in Belgium, The Vienna Metal Fest and Sweden Rock.
3 eluveitie
Eluveitie clearly belongs to the fast growing Pagan Metal-scene, anyhow brings some "fresh air" into it. Eluveitie's sound is traditional, authentic celtic Folk Music combined in a unique way with modern styled Melodic Death Metal, strongly influenced by the classic "Göthenburg Sound".
Originally formed by Mastermind Chrigel Glanzmann in winter 2002 as a mere studio-project, the first EP "Vên" was recorded in 2003, already unique in it's way of having the Folk-Part being on an equal footing with the Metal-Instruments. This self-financed MCD was ardently received by the scene, zines etc. and sold out within a few Months. In 2004 Eluveitie signed to the dutch label Fear Dark Records, which released a re-mastered (and partly re-recorded) version of "Vên", and continued as a "real" band, playing gigs together with bands such as Cruachan, Korpiklaani and Skyforger.
Although many line-up changes still had to happen, Eluveitie grew into being a band, and developed it's very own style, formed by the many different influences of nine musicians rooted in different styles of music. In late 2005, Eluveitie was finally ready to enter the studio and record their first full-lenght Album, to be released on Fear Dark Records again. With "Spirit" , Eluveitie goes a big step forward, presenting a completely new style of Folk Metal to the scene - starting a new wave of Folk Metal!
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