'Folk Metal' - A new genre?

Subject: RE: 'Folk Metal' - A new genre?
From: Stringsinger
Date: 31 Mar 09 - 06:15 PM

Musical sausage. Not too many ingredients in it are good for you. Soaked in alcohol
too long.

Pickled rock? I like the plain ol' tremoloed tenor banjo intro though.

Just because it's new doesn't give it any weight as music.

You can't understand the words too well because the singer shrieks 'em out.

You can't tell what the songs are about if they are about anything at all.

It's another "sham-wow".

Subject: RE: 'Folk Metal' - A new genre?
From: Jayto
Date: 31 Mar 09 - 11:40 AM

Here are a couple I like alot

Flogging Molly

Dropkick Murphey's

The Legendary Shack Shakers

Subject: RE: 'Folk Metal' - A new genre?
From: GUEST,Dazbo at Work
Date: 31 Mar 09 - 11:02 AM

And what about Hoven Droven - Heavy Metal as Polskas and such like :-)

Subject: RE: 'Folk Metal' - A new genre?
From: SteveMansfield
Date: 31 Mar 09 - 04:32 AM

i always imagined any mediaeval music played on bagpipes, rauschpfeifes, shawms and suchlike nasty loud agressive abrasive sounding instruments was the Heavy Metal music back in the Dark Ages
long before elecric guitars and amps were invented..

The idea that I'm regularly playing the 16th Century equivalent of heavy metal amuses me enormously, thank you for that. There's an email signature and/or a T-shirt in there somewhere :)

Subject: RE: 'Folk Metal' - A new genre?
From: Hendo
Date: 30 Mar 09 - 03:44 PM

Can i suggest Leatherat & Something Nasty in the Woodshed. Haven't read the whole thread yet but Levellers must be in there.

Subject: RE: 'Folk Metal' - A new genre?
From: GUEST,Jane Bird (without the cookie)
Date: 30 Mar 09 - 02:25 PM

No one's mentioned Glorystrokes yet?! Sheffield heavy folk ceilidh. I've rather enjoying James Bell glamfolk versions of English traditional songs. He did a spot at Oxfolk last month - it was the first time I'd heard him and he's great fun!

Subject: RE: 'Folk Metal' - A new genre?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 30 Mar 09 - 02:17 PM

I say. I say. I love the traditional song rendered traditionally. However, I think I could get into metal folk easily enough.

Just don't poppify it. If Mariah Carey or Cold Play start rendering trad songs in their style, that is when I will get a ticket for another planet.

Subject: RE: 'Folk Metal' - A new genre?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 30 Mar 09 - 01:49 PM

"Subway To Sally also make use of bagpipes, rauschpfeifes and shawms,
all of which fit in suprisingly well with their sound."

hmmmm..

actually.. i always imagined any mediaeval music
played on bagpipes, rauschpfeifes, shawms
and suchlike nasty loud agressive abrasive sounding instruments

was the Heavy Metal music back in the Dark Ages
long before elecric guitars and amps were invented..

Subject: RE: 'Folk Metal' - A new genre?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 30 Mar 09 - 12:50 PM

I was awaiting a response from the traddie crowd, this must be it.

Oi! The first response from the 'traddie crowd' was my comment, the second on the list. Sorry if it didn't confirm your preconceptions.

Subject: RE: 'Folk Metal' - A new genre?
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 30 Mar 09 - 12:12 PM

"Oh, for God's sake!"

I was awaiting a response from the traddie crowd, this must be it. What do you expect?

The Peatbog Faeries, and the late Croft No. 5, I think, come into this category

Subject: RE: 'Folk Metal' - A new genre?
From: SteveMansfield
Date: 30 Mar 09 - 03:53 AM

Subway To Sally also make use of bagpipes, rauschpfeifes and shawms, all of which fit in suprisingly well with their sound. Probably one of the few occasions where the rauschpfeife needs amplifying ...

I'm still all misty-eyed from the reminder of Boiled In Lead, what a brilliant band - when folk/rock in the UK pretty much meant Fairport Convention and their mumerous imitators, BiL were mixing in Scandinavian, Eastern European, and Indian influences with the power chords, a sort of heavier Minneapolis version of the 3 Mustaphas 3. Lovely stuff.

Subject: RE: 'Folk Metal' - A new genre?
From: M.Ted
Date: 29 Mar 09 - 06:59 PM

There is Hayseed Dixie, for those who want heavy metal in anything from Bluegrass to country pop modes, and for those who like traditional tunes in the thrash/punk style, check Subway to Sally, particularly in there groundbreaking treatment of "Carrickfergus"--

Subject: RE: 'Folk Metal' - A new genre?
From: michaelr
Date: 29 Mar 09 - 06:29 PM

Hardly a new genre. Metallica, and before them Thin Lizzie, have recorded trad songs.

Subject: RE: 'Folk Metal' - A new genre?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 29 Mar 09 - 05:55 PM

Oh, for God's sake!

Subject: RE: 'Folk Metal' - A new genre?
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 29 Mar 09 - 03:45 PM

Boiled In Lead out of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Their 1989 album, From the Ladle to the Grave is amazing.

Boiled in Lead

not to everyone's taste, so you've warned!

Subject: RE: 'Folk Metal' - A new genre?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 29 Mar 09 - 03:44 PM

I quite like Arch-Enemy and some of their stuff would re-folk quite well, but it is not folk music that has been metallised.

Subject: RE: 'Folk Metal' - A new genre?
From: Neil D
Date: 29 Mar 09 - 02:03 PM

Korpiklaani

Subject: RE: 'Folk Metal' - A new genre?
From: Alec
Date: 29 Mar 09 - 12:35 PM

sfmans, I'm strongly certain that the CD you heard at would have been Alberto Y Lost Trios Paranoias who certainly did a good Doo Wop version of Anarchy in the UK

Subject: RE: 'Folk Metal' - A new genre?
From: SteveMansfield
Date: 29 Mar 09 - 09:04 AM

A few years ago the audience-leaving-tent music at Towersey was a great CD of doo-wop versions of Anarchy In The UK and many other unlikely classics. I never did manage to track it down (or find a suitable moment to bug the various sound engineers to find out what it was) sadly ...

Thanks for the Hellsongs tip - got bored with the formula after the first two songs, but enjoyed those two - particularly love the string quartet on Jump :)

Subject: RE: 'Folk Metal' - A new genre?
From: Alec
Date: 29 Mar 09 - 05:19 AM

Heavy Metal seems to have a different sub-genre for each day of the month. I have never been a huge fan of metal music but it does have its moments. There was a discernible Folk influence on the better parts of that particular genre from a very early point (Think "Battle of Evermore") but the term only seems to have been coined in the early 'Nineties & loosely come into fashion recently.
Personally I think the term has more to do with marketing than any attempt to accurately describe the music. It does have it's moments (I quite like Skyclad's version of "Jig-a-Jig") but, far more frequently, Don Firth's reaction is wholly understandable.
Judge for yourself

Subject: RE: 'Folk Metal' - A new genre?
From: Don Firth
Date: 28 Mar 09 - 09:40 PM

Runs screaming! Dives under bed!!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: 'Folk Metal' - A new genre?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 28 Mar 09 - 09:19 PM

Earplugs, please.

Subject: RE: 'Folk Metal' - A new genre?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 28 Mar 09 - 08:53 PM

Yes Pip, I too am seeking it the other way.

Subject: RE: 'Folk Metal' - A new genre?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 28 Mar 09 - 06:26 PM

I think Roddie Frame beat them to it by about 20 years. Aztec Camera's version of the Van Halen poodle-hair classic Jump is, well, even classicker - partly because it slows it right down (which is almost always interesting; cf Coil's terrifying version of Tainted Love), but mainly because it brings out the world-weary, cynical, almost despairing undertow of the lyrics. Wellllll... you might as well... jump...

Sounds like fun. (I was hoping it'd be folk songs in the style of HM, but you can't have everything.)

Subject: 'Folk Metal' - A new genre?
From: oldhippie
Date: 28 Mar 09 - 06:09 PM

Hellsongs are a 3-piece Scandinavian band who play traditional heavy metal songs in the style of early 70's folk music. Their versions of these songs are not parodies of the originals, nor are they note-for-note replications; the band instead finds totally new ways of arranging and presenting the original material. Their transformation of Metallica's dirge-thrash number 'Blackened' into a sprightly, almost Joni Mitchell-esque singalong is bordering on genius, while their interpretation of Iron Maiden's chest-beating power anthem 'Run to The Hills' as a deeply introspective slice of acoustic melancholia is equally charming.

Is this a new genre? Or have other artists pioneered this great idea?