Under the labels of Folk Metal and Pagan Metal are ample ranges of musical expressions, and fans must be aware that extreme Metal influences and melodic ones can heard without warning. It demands of the fans a huge amount of patience, because you can find works in the line of KORPIKLAANI or INCURSED, or something as RAGNAROK UK. And it demands a lot of open minds to deal with “Gobischkevrot”, of the North American act GOBLIN HOVEL. The band’s music is made of contrasts, because in one moment you can be dealing with a funny song as “The Stowaway”, and then something aggressive and bombastic as “Gobischkevrot” (where influences of extreme Metal genres are heard on some moments, especially due the grunts of the vocals) is heard.

It’s not a sin to say that the cover an ample set of influences to transmute them into a Folk Metal/Neofolk form of music that’s filled with personality, and mainly courage to try something unexpected. The sonority is a case of trying to be defined and heavy at the same time, so the fans will have a deeper understand of what the quintet’s music up to, and will hear how heavy they can be sometimes. The artwork of “Gobischkevrot” is really very good, depicting what the band’s musical work stands for without a shadow of doubt.

The shorter songs as “The Cave”, “The Plan”, “The Stowaway” (fine banjo parts), “Dialog with a Mountain” (a giant with more than 11 minutes, but what’s the reason for such long dialogue?) and “The Night Man Learned to Fear the Mountain” seems to be just used to set the fans into right ambience for what “Ambush” (besides a long intro is used, it comes with fine instrumental parts, especially in the guitars), “Gobischkevrot” (a torrid and aggressive moment with good guttural growls), “Voyage of the Grogswiller” (a fine and funny song with some Medieval/Folk influences), “Borokol II”, “Don’t Eat the Mushrooms”, “Moon’s Fist” (very good drums and bass guitar parts, and good contrasts between grunts and clean vocals), and “Crineiga”. The band’s music is good, but it seems to lack a ‘direction’ due many unnecessary dialogues and intros.

“Gobischkevrot” is an album that can reach many fans, but as mentioned above, GOBLIN HOVEL must meditate a bit about their musical efforts (again: many intros and dialogues are unnecessary).