Every once in a while you come across a piece of music that makes you question your own sanity. True Norwegian Balkan Metal (yes, that is their official genre name) TROLLFEST's latest creation, and I mean that in the most Frankenstein-esque way possible, "Kaptein Kaos" is one of those, and so much more. The Norwegian septet formed in 2003 and has since then released 6 albums, with "Kaptein Kaos" being the sixth of these. The lyrics are written in the fictional language of Trollspråk, which literally translates to "Troll Language" (an unholy mix of Norwegian and German), and they sound as if someone took the trollishly Folky sound of FINNTROLL, incorporated the humor of TANKARD(as if FINNTROLL somehow wasn't funny enough to begin with) and then had DIABLO SWING ORCHESTRA play the whole thing while reading phrases, translated into Trollspråk of course, from "Alice in Wonderland".

The album starts off with the intro track "Trolltramp", which in a kind of ingenious way inspires a strange sense of curiosity that draws the listener in while concealing the utter madness that awaits as the first song and title track "Kaptein Kaos" starts playing: With a hysterical troll-like half-scream, half-laughter the song kicks off into an accordion and saxophone-lead frenzy that truly captures the image of a bunch of drunken trolls running amok. It's stupidly catchy, it's without a doubt the strongest track on the album, and it's probably around the end of this first song that you know in your heart of hearts if you utterly love or despise TROLLFEST. If you by this point found it to your taste, then the rest of the album isn't going to disappoint, as the mad trolls take us on a journey through a myriad of troll-infused themes and genres. The pacing is high, the quality is great and through-and-through the image of drunken trolls never wears off or grows tiresome - Which is in itself a feat worthy of a little praise.

But it is when exploring these foreign styles or experimenting with unusual instruments, similarly to the aforementioned DIABLO SWING ORCHESTRA, that the album really starts to shine and prevents itself from becoming boring or repetitive. Be it the Bossa Nova-inspired "Solskinnsmedisin", the Tango-like "Sagn Om Stein" or the Oriental-infused "Kinesisk Alkymi", TROLLFEST manages to time and time again challenge themselves musically in a truly Avant-Garde-like fashion while never losing focus of what they're out to achieve, which is alcohol-infused chaos and mayhem of the most entertainingly trollish kind.

This will definitively not be everyone's cup of troll juice, and some of their previous fans might be put off by their continued trend of slowly distancing themselves from their Extreme Metal roots, but somewhere between my utter amusement and my strong impression of their successful experimentations I have to congratulate the mad trolls and crown "Kaptein Kaos" a success.