Artist:  Fejd
Album:  Storm
Release Date: March 2009
Napalm Records
Reviewer: EarwaxOfSatan

1. Offerrök
2. Svanesång
3. Älvorna dansar
4. Vid Jore å
5. Egils polska
6. Storm
7. Varg i Veum
8. Äril
9. Skuld
10. Likfärd
11. Bergakungen [Bonus track]
12. Morgonstjärnan [Bonus track]

Here's the short version:

Great album, but not for everybody! Go to Fejd's website and check out their freely downloadable demos first! 

www.fejd.se/

Here's the long version:

Fejd, comprised of the brothers Rimmerfors and three childhood friends who now play in metal bands, has been blending traditional Scandinavian folk music and instruments with rock and metal musical structures since 2001.  After three impressive demos and a lot of live appearances in Europe's exploding folk rock and folk metal scene, Storm is the band's first commercial release.  Like the releases of soulmates Gamarna, Hedningarna, Sweden's Gjallarhorn, Lumsk, Otyg and Faun, Storm is a polished and exciting hybrid of the new and the old and is expressly NOT a grafting of a couple flute or violin riffs onto a black metal, prog, power metal or thrash instrumentation.  I liked it immediately, but it's not going to please everybody. Don't run out and buy it right away!  Go to Fejd's website and check out their freely downloadable demos first!  www.fejd.se/

Fejd's music is not, at its core, metal.  What the band does is to blend antique instruments folk-ish vocalizations and lyrical themes, with progressive and metal rhythms and rock and metal structure.  Most metalheads will probably read this review, give Storm a listen and email me with a question like "Metal? What Metal?" and "Where's the metal?".  I would then recommend that they go listen to a several hours of traditional Scandinavian folk music in order to learn how Fejd's music infuses aspects of rock and metal structure seamlessly with the folk tradition. Despite all of these caveats, the fact that Storm entered the Swedish Hard Rock Charts on April 3, 2009, at the #7 position (with no electric guitars!) testifies well to the quality of this offering.

I enjoyed this album so much during my first and second listens that it is difficult to single out individual songs as highlights. A few of the songs, like the title track, Storm, and the very sombre and medieval second instrumental Likfärd, have a darker, more serious tone that will take a while to grow on me.  Egils Polska is an upbeat instrumental which grabs you from the first bars. The intensely rhythmic battle-anthem - Varg i Veum - immediately reminded me of a more folkified version of one of my favorite folk metal bands - Otyg.  The excellent Arig could have been pulled directly out of Lumsk or Otyg's catalogue once stripped of electric guitar and female vocals. Speaking of which, Fejd experiments with female vocals to good effect on Storm (Alvorna Dansar), but I was annoyed to find that their official web site doesn't identify the guest vocalist, and neither does the promo copy of the album which I reviewed. Fans of Fejd's previous efforts will enjoy the remastered but otherwise unchanged versions of Bergakungen and Morgonstjärnan which are appended to Storm as bonus tracks.