Ensiferum - From Afar (2009)

From Afar, the fourth full length from the Finnish group and the second featuring Petri Lindroos on main (harsh) vocal duties, is easily the best Ensiferum album yet.

The album starts with "By the Dividing Stream", your standard folkish instrumental intro track - think "Ad Victoriam". The title track follows as the real first song on the album, showing off a much more structured Ensiferum than we have seen in the past, alternating between a raging thrasher and a mid-paced epic. "Twilight Tavern" follows with a great Ensiferum-style folk metal song, sure to make your head start moving and a tankard to appear in your hand.

"Heathen Throne" slows the album down for the albums first epic, highly reminiscent of "Victory Song" from the last album in it's epic evolving structure, but "Heathen Throne" also isn't afraid to ramp up the speed in between more Kalevala inspired lyrics. "Elusive Reaches" is a great straight-forward folk metal song, though it does tend to get forgotten inbetween the longer more epic songs on the album.

"Stone Cold Metal" is what happens when Finnish folk metalers listen to too much Ennio Morricone. There is a banjo solo near the end - it is awesome.

"Smoking Ruins" begins as a slow 'ballad' type song similar to the song "Wanderer" from Victory Songs, telling the story of an exiled man returning home only to find ruin.

By the smoking ruins of his past life.
He raises his hand to the skies,
"Oh god of thunder,
God of my fathers,
Strike me down for what I've done!"

"Tumman Virran Taa (Behind the Dark Stream)" is a beautiful little folk song sung completely in Finnish that segues into part two of the 'Heathen Throne' saga, "The Longest Journey". Another epic, this one 13 minutes long, finishes the album strong, with another Kalevala-inspired song.

At the start of this review I stated that From Afar was the best Ensiferum album ever. It still has the same post-Jari Mäenpää Ensiferum style, but Markus Toivonen et. al have taken that sound to a much more melodic and epic level than has been seen in the previous three albums. If you liked Victory Songs despite the lack of Jari Mäenpää, then you'll like this album, simple as that.

Verdict: Epic Win [9/10] (Far beyond the dark stream we'll meet again.)

http://www.ensiferum.com/