Žalvarinis - Folk N' Rock download free

First there was UGNELAKIS, who checked in with a single demo through Dangus Productions. Said demo offered up some likable pagan metal but nothing that could stand next to the bigger boys like OBTEST or SKYFORGER, so the band called it quits. Some time went by and a few former UGNELAKIS members got together and invited a known Lithuanian folk cappella KULGRINDA for a collaboration. So ZALVARINIS were born. The first album was simply called "Ugnelakis and Kulgrinda". KULGRINDA sang traditional songs and chants while UGNELAKIS supplied the heavy rock background. Plus, I think there was one techno track in there too. You couldn't find a more simple formula, but the album had its charm for folk-rock fans. And that's what the band were banking on. They quickly recruited a few of KULGRINDA's (who, as a side note, also did an excellent record with an ambient group DONIS) female singers as full time vocalists and produced two more albums, the latest one of which, simply titled "Folk N' Rock", I am writing about here. Calling ZALVARINIS folk-metal is stretching it a bit. Sure, there is metallic riffing alongside more regular rock styling but not a iota of aggression. The focus is squarely on the interplay between pastoral folk vocal harmonies upfront and this semi-heavy rock music backing. But hey, they are way heavier than TROLL GNET EL, if that's any consolation. Basically, if you put together popular Lithuanian folk-rock band ATALYJA with the chops of Swedish folk-rockers HOVEN DROVEN and maybe up the heaviness just by a notch, you will get ZALVARINIS. Both, "Folk N' Rock" and its predecessor "Zalio Vario" are much in the same vein (isn't it the case with so many folk-rock/metal bands?) - very even, mid-tempo, with no bad songs but no big standouts either, although I'd say the latter is a better one of the two. Everything is solid in, let's face it, a mainstream way that is accessible to the general public. If you happen to enjoy Baltic folk music (as I do), you will eat this up (as I did). If you like simple yet charming, unassuming folk-rock, you will eat this up too. The rock backing just makes the folk parts so much more digestible as opposed to listening to more "pure" things like KULGRINDA's almost entirely instrumental-less albums. That is what so many of the folk fusions really offer. Repackage and bring out traditional tunes sung by "old women in villages" in order to tickle the tastes of the modern civilized masses. And that is what numerous people in various genres have made their game, from Goran Bregovic to HEDNINGARNA. I mean, how many viking/pagan metal fans will be able to sit through a Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson's recording, eh? Moreover, I could even question the concept of this sort of fusion itself. More often than not, it seems, you have the two ingredients merely running parallel to each other in a more or less palatable flow that is listenable, but does that qualify as a proper cross-pollination of the two? Can it really be done at all? On the other hand, bringing out these tunes is still better than letting them be buried by time and dust, relegated to the repositories of a small number of ethnomusicologists. Either way, ZALVARINIS are certainly not at fault here. They haven't started a trend. They do what they do and that's that. Fans of viking-black-pagan metal should stay away from this - it's too light, sunny and friendly. People into Scandinavian folk-oriented projects like TARUJEN SAARI or VARTTINA should give this a shot, though.