It’s been since 2020, with Blodiga Skald‘s The Undrunken Curse, that I got truly excited about a folk metal album.

*sigh* there was a time when any album with horns, strings, or an accordion would have got me all sorts of worked up. Sure Ensiferum, sort of does it for me, but when I say folk metal I mean bouncy, beer hall, humpa, Finntroll, Svartby-ish shit.

Enter Denmark’s Trold, who I discovered looking for custom songs for a VR drum game called ‘Ragnarock’ (if you like metal and rhythm games, and have a VR headset- I highly recommend it). I downloaded the song “Sensommerbålet” from their debut Der var engang​.​.​. to play, simply due to the band name, loved it, and subsequently found out the band information, and lo and behold they have a new album out.

As you can tell from the band’s moniker and artwork, this is troll and party-themed metal that absolutely scratched the Finntroll/Trollfest itch, along with a bit of death metal crunch akin to countrymates Svartsot and Svartby’s impish playfulness. And with those three bands being far from productive or defunct right now, Trold fills the gap perfectly with a fun, trollish romp of an album.

I Skovens Rige covers all the folk metal bases with unserious, fun, catchy, beer-swilling troll troll-moshing glee. There are keyboards, mouth harps, accordions, tubas et all backing up a rife mix of folky tropes from epic basts to bouncy sing-alongs.

Virtually every song is fun, especially the album’s first half, from the blast beat-filled opener “Med høtyv og fakkel”, rollicking sway of “Til gilde under bøgen”, blistering catchy personal favorites “Trollmanden” and “Tusind år i dvale”, with its nifty little piano breakdown (and did I hear folk metal’s first ‘BLEGH’??) and Ennio Morricone-ish instrumental “Vår”.

The back end of the album is a bit moodier with tracks like “Mod den endeløse skov”,  “Bødlen”,  and “Gamle ask” but still has some fun moments like the pure Finntroll-ish jaunt of “Utysken”, bouncy “Skovfesten”  and closing, short sing-along romp “Tudseleg”, making I Skovens Rige one of the best, and more importantly, most enjoyable folk metal albums I’ve heard in the last couple of years.

[Visit the band's website]

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