Karelian Warcry – Demo ’04

Artist: Karelian Warcry
Country: Finland
Label: Self-Released
Formats: Demo CDr
Year: 2004

The northern countries are still a huge breeding place for metal bands, and Finland is getting more and more known with its quality metal bands. This Karelian Warcry is definitely one of them. This is the first demo the guys ever produced – simply entitled Demo 2004.

In fact this simple title is really misleading for the demo contains some great tunes, five to be exact. To begin with the points of criticism, the songs doesn’t sound the same and have quite a different sound (production wise) and the way the songs were written differs too, for instance “Heikko Mieli Lihaa Kumartaa” sounds totally different than “Sota”. Except for the little messy production there is nothing to complain about. I could definitely say that this is something for the fans of for instance Mithotyn, and undoubtedly this is one of their biggest influences. The rather up-tempo drums (no blastbeats!), the highly melodic guitars and the raspy vocals complete the atmosphere of some Viking vibe. And since I’m a huge Mithotyn fan this is something really nice for I never heard a band sounding like them, I even think that most of the songs could’ve been on “Gathered Around The Oaken Table” or “King Of A Distant Forest” – and, be sure, I don’t think they are ripping them off! Loads of variety in tempos make this album a nice listen. And to end this review, I think there is certainly interest from different parties (being fans, labels, promoters etc.) in this band.