Heidevolk – Wodan Heerst
Self-Released - 2007
By Axemaiden
Ok. I understand that objectivity is the key when writing album reviews, especially if you are a new writer. You don’t want to appear as if you’re bestowing favouritism on bands just to gain positive feedback. I cannot, however, be objective about
Heidevolk. From the moment I first listened to
Wodan Heerst it has remained in my stereo and has been played possibly about 100,000 times, with me emitting cries of glee every time I discover a new detail I hadn’t previously noticed.
Heidevolk are, in their own words “Dutch Germanic folk music combined with bombastic metal about the Germanic Gods, meat, women and beer” and to be honest, no description I can give can quite beat this one!
Wodan Heerst is a mini CD recorded in 2006 consisting of three tracks, the entire CD is roughly 15 minutes long and is a taster for their upcoming full-length offering, which will hopefully see them becoming signed as they most definitely deserve it. The first track
‘Wodan Heerst’ is an 8 minute long track, a combination of chugging crunchy metal riffs overlaid with intricate guitar solos and interwoven with beautiful folk violin work which gives the track an interesting and rather melancholically ethereal edge. The vocals are very unique and sound more like a cross between harmonised warrior chants, pirate sea shanties and pagan orc grunts (see last track for this especially!) than the usual range of metal vocals, but they fuse extremely well with the music to give
Heidevolk a very individual sound.
Track 2,
‘Het bier zal weer vloeien’ is a reworking of an older song and is much slower and less complex than the track
‘Wodan Heerst’ which is a newer offering. Although
‘Het bier…’ is a great song (which adequately sums up how I imagine ancient Germanic tribes would sound, should they choose to sing metal), you can see from the difference in the two tracks how much more musically accomplished
Heidevolk have become and hopefully how much better they will carry on getting. Definitely buy this!
Official Heidevolk Website
