Graveland

[JayKeeley]

I have a feeling that I will enjoy Graveland more today than six months ago. I was already pretty much sold on Immortal Pride, but I have two other CDs collecting dust:

Raise your Sword!
Thousand Swords (the one with the funny cover)

Anyway, is one better than the other? Where should I focus my attention towards? Any particular standout songs?

 

[J.]

I'll tackle this later. I have some stupid training this morning.

 

[Doom]

I own 3 Graveland CD's:

Memory and Destiny
Thousand Swords
Following The Voice of Blood

Memory and Destiny was my first, and I really, really like it. That made me get the other two, but I haven't been able to get into them yet. I think I might do one day though, so I haven't given up, but they're really not very easy to listen to due to the production.

However, Thousand Swords seems to be mentioned a lot as a favourite, so maybe you'd do well to concentrate on that. Ironically, those same fans seem to not think much of Memory and Destiny. It's much more Viking than those other two.

 

[J.]

Out of Thousand Swords and Raise Your Sword, you will like Raise Your Sword more, most likely.

RYS is more "viking" and bombastic and in the vein of Creed of Iron and Memory and Destiny. The first song on RYS is friggin' fantastic.

Thousand Swords is commonly referred as the best Graveland. I don't see it. Good, yes. Their best, no. Following the Voice of Blood is easily my favorite. Like Doom said, it's not easy listening. I admit I didn't fully appreciate Graveland until after a good 3-4 months after I bought the albums.

The Fire of Awakening is also a good choice if investigating them further.

If you dig Immortal Pride and Raise Your Sword, it's a given you'll enjoy Creed of Iron, M&D, TFoA, and probably FtVoB. The Blood of Heroes EP is OK, not really essential to the casual fan. Raiders of Revenge (split with Honor) has some really good Graveland songs, but the Honor songs are just ho-hum nazi oi metal or something with awful vocals.

Epilogue/In the Glare of Burning Churches, Carpathian Wolves, The Celtic Winter are all atmospheric black metal with zero of the Pagan spirit from the later albums. If you've heard Veles, then you get an idea what these sound like, though they are much better than Veles.

 

[J.]

I forgot the Impaler's WOlves EP, which is simply two old school Graveland songs given the "epic" treatment. It works fairly well, and is a long EP clocking in at around 30 minutes, but not really essential.

 

[Under a Stone]

The only material of Graveland i've heard is The Celtic Winter(which sounds like a reworking of Burzum's early albums)and Immortal Pride.

 

[Ayeka]

Would people say that The Celtic Winter is well representative of Graveland's style, or are there things I'm missing which I need to get more albums to hear?

 

[J.]

ya, Erik nailed it.

Most in this forum would love the latter era.

 

[Ayeka]

Cheers for the pointers

 

[JayKeeley]

"Immortal Pride" through "The Fire of Awakening" = Much more polished here, long long epic songs reminiscient of "Hammerheart" or something.

And which albums fall into this period?

 

[JayKeeley]

STFW

I don't know what this means, but I assume it's something to do with me being a lazy bastard for not looking it up myself, heh. It's just that some of those ranges you gave earlier seemed to be two albums back to back, not making a range as such.

Anyhoo, I shall proceed to listen to my Raise your Sword! Yes indeed.

 

[Krilons Resa]

Immortal Pride and Thousand Swords are my top picks out of the catalog. The other ones haven't clicked with me yet.

 

[JayKeeley]

I was thinking "Smelly Turd Fish Water" but close enough.

 

[Under a Stone]

Search The Fucking Web. Yes.

Should this be added to the RC dictionary?

 

[Krilons Resa]

Any particular standout songs?

Born of War !


Damn, this forum is running like a motherfucking slug the last couple dayssss!!!!

 

[Krilons Resa]

"The Fire of Awakening" honestly rules. It's the most polished (I think he bought a new synth) and probably the most accessible Graveland, but all that aside it's just one absolutely great album. Mightily impressed with that one, it's somewhere in my top 10 for 2003.

Holy shit. You're right. I am listening to it right now and it is amazing.

 

[J.]

The first song on Creed of Iron is still one of my faves. The first song on Raise Your Sword rules. All of immortal Pride is excellent. And again, the songs on Raiders of Revenge are great, if you don't mind having 5 nazi oi songs on there as well, which are gay.

THe Fire of Awakening is better than I remember, especially track #5 (I think it was.)

 

[JayKeeley]

So I listened to Raise your Sword. I think the problem I have with it, and the same problem the first time I heard it, is that the production is weak for such a large 'sounding' album. The guitars are too treble-heavy and almost tinny sounding. If memory serves me right, Immortal Pride didn't seem to suffer from this as much. I did like track #3 "U Objecia Smierci" (sp?) and the vocals don't annoy me as much as they used to.

By the way, if the vocals are all "arrrghh blarrgh" etc, then what's the point of translating them from Polish to English, and vice versa? That makes no sense.

OK I shall listen to Thousand Swords next, but from the descriptions above, it sounds like I might want to hear The Fire of Awakening at some point.

 

[Caelum Adustum]

I have "Carpathian Wolves" and "Thousand Swords," both are good but TS is better.

 

[Under a Stone]

I haven't much of Thousand Swords. How does it compare to The Celtic Winter and Carpathian Wolves?