Artist: Fyrdsman
Title: The Free Man
Type: Album
Label: Digital / Self Released
When I first saw the imminent arrival of a new Fyrdsman album, I was immediately brought back to one of the many fine lines from the excellent film Grosse Point Blanke: “Ten years, man! Ten years!!”
Except it’s been…gulp…Thirteen. One. Three.
Sixteen since the debut EP.
It happens; a band or a project releases something and disappears never to be heard from again but the big difference for me was the number of my friends who had the album. And more people I knew who had listened to it and loved it. This one man project of Tim Shaw had for me a unique sound; it was black metal, somewhere between Winterfylleth, Forefather and Fellwarden (if such a land exists) with rich and passionate folk driven guitar melodies. It was, and is, a remarkable debut. Brimming with folklore and roots in the land and with such a life to it the silence after was deafening.
So is this still that Fyrdsman, merely changed a little by life’s journey, or a new beast entirely…?
Well ‘The Green Man’ opens with a fine riff, a bright sound but a melody that dips into a darker place. The vocals are harsh when the come in, the song riding a real wave of verve and surprising layering. And when the melody hits, the brief line of clean vocals, it really hits home. A song of anger, and of the persistence of the Green Man in churches up and down this land. The guitar break is just gorgeous heavy metal. It’s a maelstrom, a whipped up whirlwind of influences and yet it works and those clean vocals just grab your heart and raise the passion. After thirteen years, this is the way to begin…
‘Sacred Water’ has a pace to the drumming and riff that bursts through, synths weaving through the background like the flow of water. I realise that there is just a little touch of maybe punk here in the edge and the energy; think maybe classic period Amebix but with the melodic grasp of Fellwarden and a black metal basis. It is wild; bass bubbles through, the guitar leads are superb but that guitar tone to the riff is full of folk fire, black metal forged. Oh it is marvellous.
‘Dispossession’ opens with just the most perfect, beautiful melodic guitar work. I hope this doesn’t put people off but imagine if Big Country had roughed up their sound into wild metal sound it might have come close. The tune has deep and melancholic hooks, the lyrics of our ways have numbered days have a perfect mix of bitterness and sadness. But the way the waves of melody crash over this song is just stunning; it has a ffeel of the travelling folk poet but with a metal soul. I got chills with the fiddle like melody, it haunts me even now. The sound of a fading world indeed…
‘The Forger’ is a dark tale of contracts made, and of knives. The sound is earthy, hidden ins shadows and a guitar sound that warns of its hidden plot. When the keyboards are used their heighten the edge of the sound somehow, when it moves into quieter waters the progressive touch is unmistakeable. The clean vocals are perfectly used, beautifully arranged. The atmosphere grim but plain spoken. A world where the basic end of all is simply truth. The world crafts people and some do dark deeds.
‘Wither’ is a lament, a gentle sway of loss, a blues tinged and soulful guitar, soft flowing bass drifting into heady, turbulent waters as things drift beyond reach into ephemeral, ethereal, intangible memories.
The epic of the album ‘Exile’ begins with some acoustic guitar which curiously reminds me of Heart around ‘Little Queen’. That sylvan sound, the melody light and the vocal sounds sunlight breaking through trees. Utterly crushed by the slow deliberate riff tearing soul from home. The music becomes harsh, the beauty gone and the trees become dark and desperate cover. In exile, robbed of my home, outlaw. Steering clear of the roads…Again that mix of folk, of progressive and of metal with roots in the black. It is a journey indeed; rough ground and isolated in step but somewhere, always in the brief moments of twinkling melody there is a sense of freedom and of… vitality.
The instrumental ‘Uhtceare’, is a word I never knew I needed. To lie awake anxiously before dawn. Piano and keyboards in half light too dark to awaken and yet too insistent to find slumber. A quiet sound, haunting. Somehow the anxiety is all within as the day cares nothing for such things. It is simply the world waking, unknowing and unbothered by what has brought you there….. Perhaps there will be peace in that. Perhaps.
This wonderful return closes with ‘The Free Man’. This is a rousing, rolling song. Clashing guitar, harsh vocals. Barbaarian, Irregular. Partisan. The Free Man, A song of stoic defiance, of acceptance of what they have become, what they are. The riff has a glorious rise and fall hook, that hint of the Forefather sound there. The bassline becomes a glorious solo, the speed of the following riff bringing that turbulence back and just one final surge of blood and of spirit.
This is one of those joyful moments when a favourite returns and they have changed, yes, but more progressed. I looked back at my old review for Ave Noctum and note the shifting of sound, the fading of some influence in the sound, the rise of others and yet it simply all feels like Fyrdsman coming back into focus stepping free of the mists of those fading years. A wonderful ,dare I say it unique mix of black metal in the form of Fellwarden, that Forefather twist, the Amebix attack with its almost punk edge and the relentless progressive turns and flow with the fired up passion of metal blending it all. Folklore, myth, legend, heart and soul.
Oh damn, I am so glad this day came. This is an album that deserves so much love and not a little awe. Gather round people: The fire still burns here warm, bright and deep.
Gizmo
Walking The Liminal Space 