Band:	The Flight Of Sleipnir
Album:	Saga
Style:	Doom metal, Folk metal, Stoner metal
Release date:	February 2013

01. Prologue
02. Reaffirmation
03. Reverence
04. Harrowing Desperation
05. Heavy Rest The Chains Of The Damned
06. Judgment
07. Demise Carries With It A Song
08. The Mountain
09. Hour Of Cessation
10. Remission
11. Beneath Red Skies
12. Epilogue

If I told you that I have a fantastic blackened folk metal band for you to hear, you'd probably yawn and roll your eyes. After all, the style had become a tad overdone in recent years, has it not? You'd probably dismiss my suggestion as "just another Agalloch, just another Wyrd, just another (insert blackened folk band here)." But what if I told you that the band I have to suggest isn't merely your standard fusion of black and folk metal, but also manages to throw some stoner elements into the mix that add a whole separate dimension to their sound? Well, ladies and gentlemen, America's The Flight Of Sleipnir are just that.

If the name of The Flight Of Sleipnir has passed you by previously, you'd know that these guys aren't new to their scene. The band's creative vision structured around the duo of Clayton Cushman (guitars, bass, vocals, keys) and David Csicsely (drums, additional vocals and guitars), 2013 sees The Flight Of Sleipnir dropping their fourth studio album, Saga. Picking up from the direction of 2011's Essence Of Nine, the band's new album packs very much the same formula as its predecessor. That is, an excellent blend of black metal ("Harrowing Desperation," "Judgment") and folk metal ("Reverence," "The Mountain") elements, reflected in both the instrumentation and the vocals. From a subjective standpoint, Saga leans a lot less towards the black metal side of the equation than the band's previous efforts; sure, the BM shrieks everybody loves are there, but they become much more dominated by the clean vocals and acoustic passages of the music's folk side.

But as I said, this formula is really nothing new within metal. What truly helps the music shine, and makes Saga more than just another blackened folk album, are the stoner elements. There are plenty of moments throughout the album that are dominated by a riff-heavy, groovy guitar tone ("Harrowing Desperation," "Demise Carries With It A Song"), and at some points even well-carved bluesy guitar leads ("Reaffirmation," "Hour Of Cessation," "Judgment")! The additional dimension these elements add to the music cannot be understated. A stoner folk metal album with some extreme vocals thrown in: that's what you could call [i]Saga[i], if not all of The Flight Of Sleipnir's discography, if you want to get really genre-crazy about it. These two creative visionaries have managed to pack something in for everybody with this distinct mix: folk metal, stoner metal, and black metal fans (even though the BM elements are minimal) will likely all find something to enjoy in it. "Extreme groove folk metal." It may sound strange in theory, but the The Flight Of Sleipnir have been making it work for the past six years, and, thus far, they show no sign of slowing down.