Discussion on the new Album:"Stand up and Fight"

After listening to Stand Up And Fight a couple of times, the album seems very promising to me. It sounds quite good.

I'm a little disappointed that the album won't be released in North America in February though. I was looking forward to listening to it on the trek to the Turisas show. :p
 
It's always like that..even though i'm always here,just no posting hehe

But now the only question is who can wait until end of february?!
 
One hour. or something. then you have the translation.
but well, I think now that the first review is up, I can finally state that I also already heard the full album (because I do work as press, too), and can really really state that you shouldn´t base your thoughts or expectations on the coming reviews because the album does have many different kinds of sounds and appearances and at times, at leats for me, it´s hard to put the heard song into the most suiting words...

EDIT: god I hate translating reviews, it´s so difficult >.<
 
Okay, I literally FOUGHT my way through the review, because of all these "uptempo" comments it was hard - and it´s been somehow sooo technically written.
Therefore: just sense-wise translated, not word by word.
Also I cut off that long introcution thingy that is quite not useful if you´re interested in the song-descriptions (okay okay, I admit, I was just too lazy XD)

"The March Of The Varangian Guard" ist he perfect opening song with heroic choirs, kettle drums and trumpets. Broad orchestra parts add to the clear vocals. After an instrumental middle-part, wide-screen epic starts and the varangian guards begin a chorus that everyone can sing along.

"Take The Day!" starts with trumpets, out of which a stamping rhythm developes.A broad midtempo is used, the warriers around Nygard set to move whilst he offers the embracing storyline with a narrative voice. All of a sudden he stresses his vocal chords, a massive stamping joins, a bassbreak and cascade-like angels´ voices. Latest here you can see that Turisas have been working hard on the orchestrations. The piece ends with an instrumental part.

"Hunting Pirates" ist he pirates-song oft he album, but in the beginningscene on the market with choirs, violins, singing and joy it´s not yet really clear if the pirates are the hunter or the ones being hunted. After two minutes a slow intrumental part begins and ends into a solo.

"&#946;&#941;&#957;&#949;&#964;&#959;&#953;! - &#960;&#961;&#940;&#963;&#953;&#957;&#959;&#953;!" begins with fanfares and a fast rhythm. The song reminds, due to it´s instrumental layers during the first two minutes, on filmmusic. The two rivaling parties, the blue and the green ones, appear on the “screen“. Again and again battle calls come up and then the enumeration of both teams.

Der titlesong "Stand Up And Fight" starts with a heavy midtempo till Warlord inserts a narrative part after half a minute. The piece of music offers a lot of bombast in the refrain but after the very first listening-experience the song does not have the expected potential for being a hit. That might come later.

"The Great Escape" varies the known ingredients very nicely: first a guitar-riff, a stamping rhythm and poisonous vocals. To this, crunchy guitars and musical-like singing is added. After a straight middle-part, fanfares and choires start and last till a break with drum roll occurs. The song ends with violins…

In contrast to that, "Fear The Fear" begins with a straight uptempo-rhythm with a stress on the trumpets. All of a sudden there is a guitarbreak that reminds a little on the song from the well-known stallone-boxing film. The song is living from a slow but constantly rising tension, which ends after five minutes and a break in a Cinemascope-bombast.

"End Of An Empire" is, with its length of over 7 minutes, the longest song of the album. First you can hear soft vocals and acoustic guitars, always interrupted by a piano. After something around 1.5 minutes the speed rises and a broad orchestration and choirs start. After 4.5 minutes the arrangement changes to wind instruments and dreamy piano-sounds whilst Warlord whispers. The empire is about to end, with much uptempo, choirs and a monumental end.

"The Bosphorus Freezes Over" is the reverberation with stringed instruments and harp. Warlord narrates and then choirs, guitar and soft drums start. After 3:20, for a last time, broadwall bombast (WTF?) beings and doesnt leave the song anymore.

No question: STAND UP AND FIGHT is influenced a lot by film-music and in this case quite a bit influenced by epic stuff like „Ben Hur“ or „Spartacus“.
Nevertheless – and there I had to swallow a bit – you always have the returning thought of a musical, even though Turisas know how to avoid the bombast ending up in cheesiness.
For this, STAND UP AND FIGHT is way to complex and you can always see a certain winking with those Finns.

There is just the question left, where the accordion ended up, because the band hired with Netta Skog fort he album a throughout young and talented accordionist.
This is what singer Mathias says about it: „I do like the sound of the accordion but it pushest he music into a too folky direction. On the album though we wanted to create soundscapes like with filmmusic and that´s why we disclaimed the accordion during the recordings. Live it´s gonna look completely different, again.
 
Thanks a lot!
Sounds like it will take quite a few spins to fully absorb the songs. Which is a good thing.

Most interesting part is the whole accordion subject. Since the sound will be different with all those choires and fanfares and stuff, I don't think I will miss the accordion to much on the record (but who knows what will happen once I get the cd). And it will be interesting to see how it will translate into a live experience.
 
Thanks a lot!
Sounds like it will take quite a few spins to fully absorb the songs. Which is a good thing.

it needs definetely more than one spin to really be able to dig deep - I can only talk about myself, but I had the feeling that during the pre-listening I wasn´t fully able to really get the complete broadwith of the album because it is, as that reviwer also said, pretty complex music-wise.
 
So having finally listened to Stand Up and Fight I have to say I fucking love it and I cannot wait to be bellowing it out when I see them in March.

And the chorus is epiiiiiiiiiiic.

I'm such a fanboy.
 
I love that they're moving into a more "movie music" direction. I'm just really diggin' this kind of epicness, if you know what I mean. After listening to Stand up and Fight, I am sure that this is going to be one kickass album.

I can't wait till it's out, just one more month to survive 8)
 
well, there were certain lucky press-people to hear it at two pre-listenings esp for press-people (one in germany and one in finland), and those only heard it already completely.

the rest of the people only hear the stuff from that download-thing and noooooow Stand up and Fight can also be listened to on myspace...
 
I'm still kinda worried that they might have overdone the orchestra. It's merely a tool for the band, not the tool.
Oh well.. time will tell.
 
no need to worry imo, there are a lot of orchestrations, but I don´t think it´s overdone...

yaps, because one song doesn´t tell a thing in this case here ;)
 
I just checked Nuclear Blast's webshop, seems like that's the only place you can pre-order the album already, and there are 3 versions:

CD
CD + LP
2 CD

I suppose the 2CD is the "limited digibook", but it this goes the way it went with TVW there are might be a lot more versions of the album out :rofl: