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The Writ of Sword is the second full-length album from Finnish folk metal band Crimfall. It was released in 2011 and is the first album from Crimfall as a full band, as their debut, 2009’s As the Path Unfolds... featured only three regular members. The music of Crimfall is best described as symphonic folk metal as there is some emphasis on orchestration throughout the album, but not to the point that it is dominated by it and the folk melodies remain at the fore of the sound, along with some decent and often pretty aggressive metal elements. Sometimes some elements of other metal genres creep into their music as well, such as progressive and power influences, but these take a backseat and are only heard on rare occasion during the album and could easily be missed if your attention was to wander.
But on that note The Writ of Sword doesn’t strike me as an album that should be allowing your attention to wander, particularly if you’re an established folk metal fan. What the album does strike me as is an exceptional one at once and it gets better with subsequent listens as you learn where the really epic moments are and can psyche yourself up in order to be ready for them. It’s also a petty varied album all things considered, with plenty of fresh ideas cropping up from this band who clearly aren’t afraid of a bit of experimentation and there’s a nice mix of heavier and lighter sections in the songs.
Vocal wise Crimfall uses the tried and tested formula of alternating growls and female vocals, curtsey of Mikko Häkkinen and Helena Haaparanta respectively. Both are good at what they do and the band finds the right sort of balance vocal wise for The Writ of Sword to work to best effect – there’s never a section in the album where I wish they’d allocated a vocal section to the other vocalist. There are also several guests vocalists appearing on the album, including Tapio Wilska (ex-Finntroll) and Mathias Nygård (Turisas).
My only real complaint about the album is that although it is of an average length at about forty-five minutes, it could well do with being a bit longer because by the time you reach its end it feels like it should be continuing into even more epic folk metal. It certainly leaves me begging for more upon its conclusion. Depending on your point of view I guess that could be seen as a good or a bad thing. On one hand I feel that the end comes too soon, on the other the replay value for The Writ of Sword is very high. But all in all I’m very impression by the album and I look forward to hearing more from Crimfall in the future.