Band:	Equilibrium
Album:	Turis Fratyr
Style:	Viking folk metal
Release date:	February 2005

01. Turis Fratyr
02. Wingthors Hammer
03. Unter Der Eiche
04. Der Sturm
05. Widars Hallen
06. Met
07. Heimdalls Ruf
08. Die Prophezeiung
09. Nordheim
10. Im Fackelschein
11. Tote Heldensagen
12. Wald Der Freiheit
13. Shingo Murata [Digipack bonus]

Already when seeing the coverart and hearing the 34 seconds long intro you'll have a quite solid idea of what this album holds in store for you. Pure epicness. And beginning with the first song, Wingthors Hammer, this epicness gets combined with very fast and solid folk metal.

In fact the only slow songs we got here are the keyboard / folk instruments -only instrumentals (the intro, Heimdalls Ruf, Im Fackelschein and Wald Der Freiheit). As you can see there are quite a number of instrumentals for an album with thirteen tracks. And also in the non-instrumental tracks we have a lot of tranquil, epic and atmospheric instrumental parts replacing the fast-paced drumming and the riffing at frequent intervals.

The guitar riffs are mainly very melodic and happy sounding. While the drumming almost doesn't vary at all in terms of drumming patterns, it does vary greatly in terms of speed, always fitting perfectly with the rest of the instruments. The bass is mainly played fast. The vocals are another highlight in the band. Sometimes reminding of thrash metal and sometimes of black metal. Sometimes consisting of shrieks and at other times being very guttural. In any case they are always extreme.

Despite the singing being quite fast most of the time the lyrics are very well decipherable, if you can understand German that is. Most of the lyrics of this German sextet, one woman and five men, are sung in their native language. They are about feasts, mead, Norse mythology and fallen heroes.

Although enjoyable at times the use of sound samples (birds, rivers and that kind of stuff) seem to be used a little bit too frequent here, and while enjoying the first few you might find yourself rolling your eyes after the sixth or seventh ambiance part. Don't get me wrong, they are good and set up a perfect atmosphere, but they are just being used too often.

Although this is much better then most of the other folk metal albums I have heard, it is one of the best in fact, it is not at all one of the most creative ones. The songs are good, but they all sound very similar to each other. Reflecting on this very good album I think about their future with mixed thoughts, they are good musicians, but except if they come up with something new I doubt their next album will be worth hearing at all. The music is good, but it is always the same.