Just as the German CREMATORY did for their fans some years ago by releasing an album sung in their native language, so did the Swedish FALCONER that chose to honor their local loyal fans and the country's heritage. Although, it might be quite difficult for English speaking listeners to truly understand what is going on, yet, FALCONER always deliver it with music. To say that this is enough, it is hard to say because I am writing about a band that its large majority of stories that always have been mesmerizing along with the harmonious heavy riffed music, which on its has been inspiring time after time.

I can say that what made this new release, "Armod", to be quite a good one, even though the language turned out to be a barrier, is the band's vocalist, Mathias Blad. The reason I am mentioning him and not Stefan Weinerhall and the rest of the FALCONER peers is because I didn't have a shadow of a doubt that the music was going to disappoint and it surely didn't. Weinerhall and crew wrote, as usual, some excellent pieces of mixed Folk and Power Metal music added by extreme energetic blast beats alongside folkish elementals. Flanking the great music, producer Andy LaRocque made the album sound both attacking and relaxing. He generated for the band an awesome firepower to shoot off their riffages.

Back to Blad, I think that this guy is genius. I have always found him as more than a vocalist. For me, he is also as a sort of narrator or sometimes even a small level actor. His genuine way of singing the lyrics is something that is hard to find in Metal and probably in other genres as well. When I first listened to FALCONER's debut, I didn't think that he was Swedish at all because his rich English and pronunciations sounded so fluent as if he was a native speaker. Blad's style of singing and the atmosphere of the album were a part of the reason why the language barrier here on "Armod" was soften a bit and I was able to connect with almost all the songs on the album.

I liked "Grimborg" that reminded me some of the older FALCONER songs. "Dimmornas Drottning" felt more like a story but still it delivered. On "Fru Silfver" I thought it is going to be another folk kind of ballad but it came to strike pretty much at the beginning with some well done riffs. The same was also on the attacking opener of "Svarta Änkan"and the epic of "Herr Peder Och Hans Syster"that also shared soothing moments along with high on fire rhythms.

Although I had a little trouble myself to connect to the overall release, and I must say that I think I have crossed a few lines, I think that FALCONER made a good album even though it was in their native tongue. At least it was good to know, after I read the new regarding the album, that this little endeavor is a onetime deal so I wonder what will come next from these gents.