Folk metal
Folk metal is a fusion genre of heavy metal music and traditional folk music that developed in Europe during the 1990s. It is characterised by the widespread use of folk instruments and, to a lesser extent, traditional singing styles. It also sometimes features soft instrumentation influenced by folk rock.
The earliest folk metal bands were Skyclad from England and Cruachan from Ireland. Skyclad's debut album The Wayward Sons of Mother Earth was released in 1991 and would be considered a thrash metal album with some folk influences, unlike Cruachan’s early work which embraced the folk element as a defining part of their sound. It was not until 1994 and 1995 that other early contributors in the genre began to emerge from different regions of Europe and beyond. Among these early groups, the German band Subway to Sally spearheaded a different regional variation that over time became known as medieval metal. Despite their contributions, folk metal remained little known with few representatives during the 1990s. It was not until the early 2000s when the genre exploded into prominence, particularly in Finland with the efforts of such groups as Finntroll, Ensiferum, Korpiklaani, Turisas, and Moonsorrow.
The music of folk metal is characterised by its diversity with bands known to perform different styles of both heavy metal music and folk music. A large variety of folk instruments are used in the genre with many bands consequently featuring six or more members in their regular line-ups. A few bands are also known to rely on keyboards to simulate the sound of folk instruments. Lyrics in the genre commonly deal with fantasy, mythology, paganism, history and nature.
History
Origins
The English band Skyclad was formed in 1990 after vocalist Martin Walkyier left his previous band, the thrash metal group Sabbat. Skyclad began as a thrash metal band but added violins from session musician Mike Evans on several tracks from their debut album, The Wayward Sons of Mother Earth, an effort described by Eduardo Rivadavia of AllMusic as "ambitious" and "groundbreaking." The song "The Widdershins Jig" from the debut album has been acclaimed as "particularly significant" and "a certain first in the realms of Metal". With a full-time fiddler in their lineup, the band's second album feature a "now legendary folky jig style" and "more prominent inclusion of the fiddle playing lead lines and melodies normally associated with the lead guitar parts of most other rock bands."Even with the departure of Martin Walkyier in 2001, Skyclad remains an active folk metal group today after nearly two decades since their formation. In contrast, the Portuguese band Moonspell had a brief tenure in the genre. Their first release was the 1994 Under the Moonspell EP with music that featured Lusitanian folk and Medieval influences. With the release of their debut album Wolfheart in the following year, the band made a transition into gothic metal and within a matter of years "quickly evolved into one of the major players of the European goth-metal scene."
Cruachan were formed in 1992 in Dublin, Ireland. From the outset their intention was to mix the native Irish folk music of their home country with the more extreme side of metal music. Their debut album Tuatha Na Gael was released in 1995 and was a full folk metal album from start to finish. In the Italian book Folk Metal, Dalle origini al Ragnarök, a comprehensive history of the genre, author Fabrizio Giosuè credits Cruachan as being the very first real folk metal band. He acknowledges that Skyclad did have some folk parts in some songs before Cruachan however he goes on to say Cruachan used folk music as much as they used heavy metal music. Cruachan also used arrangements of known folk songs and melodies, Skyclad wrote folk "sounding" parts.
Spanish band Mägo de Oz was among early folk metal artists that were influenced by the Celtic folk music. The band introduced folk elements and instruments in their power metal-based music from their 1994 debut album. Another early developer of folk metal is the Finnish group Amorphis. They formed in 1990 with their debut album, The Karelian Isthmus, following two years later. Their sophomore effort Tales from the Thousand Lakes was released in 1994 with "plenty of fascinating melodies and song structures that drew heavily from the traditional folk music of their native country." The album received a favorable reception from fans with "its content quickly being exalted across the metal underground as perhaps the very pinnacle of atmospheric death metal achievement."
Regional variations
Medieval metal
The German band Subway to Sally was formed in 1992 as a folk rock band, singing in English and incorporating Irish and Scottish influences in their music. With their second album MCMXCV released in 1995, the band adopted a "more traditional approach" and started singing in German. Taking Skyclad as an influence, Subway to Sally performs a blend of hard rock and heavy metal "enriched with medieval melodies enmeshed in the songs via bagpipes, hurdy-gurdy, lute, mandoline, shalm, fiddle and flute" and combined with "romantic-symbolic German-speaking poetry" in their lyrics. With chart success in their native Germany, they have since been credited as the band "that set off the wave of what is known as medieval rock."This distinctly German phenomenon has been continued and expanded further by subsequent bands. Formed in 1996, the Berlin based In Extremo has also found chart success with their "medieval style stage garb and unashamed usage of such bizarre, sometimes hand made, instruments as the Scottish bagpipes." Another band that has experienced commercial success in Germany is the Bavarian outfit Schandmaul. Describing themselves as the "minstrels of today," the band employs a musical arsenal that includes the bagpipes, hurdy-gurdy, shawm, violin and mandolin.
Celtic metal
The Irish band Cruachan was formed in 1992 by guitarist Keith Fay with their first demo recording distributed in 1993. Drawing inspiration from Skyclad's first album, Fay set out to combine black metal with the folk music of Ireland. Their debut album Tuatha Na Gael was released in 1995 and the band has since been acclaimed as having "gone the greatest lengths of anyone in their attempts to expand" the genre of folk metal. Cruachan's combination of Celtic music and heavy metal is known today as Celtic metal.Parallel to Cruachan, the black metal act Primordial also released a demo recording in 1993 and "found themselves heralded as frontrunners in the burgeoning second-wave black metal movement." Irish music plays "a very big role" in Primordial but in "a dark and subtle way" through the chords and timings. The band has since "established themselves as one of the most unique sounding bands in the folk-meets-black metal field." Other early representatives of Celtic metal include the bands Geasa, Mägo de Oz and Waylander with both groups releasing a demo recording in 1995.
Oriental metal
The Israeli progressive metal band Orphaned Land was formed in 1991 and released the demo The Beloved's Cry in 1993, "immediately creating a media stir" that "quickly drew attention to their unorthodox style." The music of Orphaned Land "borrow heavily from Middle Eastern music styles" with traditional elements coming from both Jewish and Arabic folk music. Acclaimed as "one of the world's most unique and trailblazing heavy metal bands," Orphaned Land's style of music has since been dubbed oriental metal.Melechesh formed in Jerusalem in 1995, becoming "undoubtedly the first overtly anti-Christian band to exist in one of the holiest cities in the world." Melechesh began as a straightforward black metal act with their first foray into folk metal occurring on the title track of their 1996 EP The Siege of Lachish. Their subsequent albums saw the group straddling the boundaries between black, death, and thrash metal, with "impressive, tastefully rendered epics chock-full of superb riffs, Middle Eastern melodies, and vocal exchanges varying from a throaty midrange screech to chanting." Other oriental metal acts emerged thereafter with the band Distorted emerging in 1996 as the first female-fronted metal act from Israel.
Additional oriental metal bands emerged form the Middle East in the 2000s, such as Myrath from Tunisia, who mix Middle Eastern and Arabic melodies with power metal and progressive rock. The Kordz from Lebanon combine Middle Eastern instrumentation with politicized lyrics. and Andaz Uzzal from Algeria combine that region's traditional music forms with heavy metal. Egypt's Massive Scar Era includes several female members, who have reported harassment due to their participation in heavy metal music.
Development
From the middle of the 1990s, other bands gradually emerged to combine heavy metal with folk music. Storm was a short lived Norwegian supergroup with Fenriz, Satyr and Kari Rueslåtten from the black metal groups Darkthrone, Satyricon and the doom metal band The 3rd and the Mortal respectively. Their only album Nordavind was released in 1995 with the use of keyboards to imitate the sound of folk instruments. The Germans Empyrium also relied on synthesizers and guitars to deliver their "dark folklore" black metal music with the release of their 1996 debut album A Wintersunset...The year 1996 also saw the debut album of the "one-man black metal project of multi-instrumentalist Vratyas Vakyas" from Germany known as Falkenbach. Even though Falkenbach was formed as early as 1989, the band didn't get much attention until the debut, that includes epic music that is "rife with keyboards, Viking themes, and folk music tendencies," Falkenbach was effectively a merge of Viking metal with folk metal. They were joined in the next two years by other bands combining the two genres including Windir, Månegarm and Thyrfing.
Predating most folk metal groups, the Spanish band Mägo de Oz was formed as far back as 1989 with a self-titled debut album, released in 1994. With nine members in their lineup, including a violinist and flutist, the band has evolved over the years into a combination of power metal and Celtic flavored folk metal. They have experienced strong chart success in their native Spain as well as in South America and Mexico.
Slough Feg from Pennsylvania, United States also had an early formation dating back to 1990. Their self-titled debut album was released in 1996 and the band has pursued a "unique style of combining traditional/power metal with folk metal."
The Czech band Silent Stream of Godless Elegy had formed in 1995 as a doom metal band "laced with Pagan imagery and adventurous enough to include violins and cellos alongside the expected modern day arsenal." With the release of their second album Behind the Shadows in 1998, the band began to use "folklore influences" in their music.