Hailing from Trois-Rivières, Québec, this Folk Metal band just released their first full-length album. They took a long break a number of years ago and they are back with a vengeance. They decided to come back together for the love of music and that passion really shows on this release. They are a refreshing brand of Folk Metal, a genre that has been pretty stagnant to be honest. As for the local scene, we don't have much Folk Metal bands out there. We do have a lot of everything, well, to each his own obviously. They are light years in front of many of the Folk Metal bands I heard from my home province.

I have been following the local scene more attentively in the last two years and I have been to smaller shows and smaller venues to see what's out there. Well, TROLLHEIMS stands tall on any band out there in that genre. They have a unique blend of Folk Metal, Viking Metal and Traditional Heavy Metal. They are a number of bands out there that have been active for longer and just don't close to achieving anything near this band musically.  I won't name any names but I can think of a few bands that are just not that good but think they are...

They self-produced this album and they did a fine job, I bet they really sound great live as well and I would be really open to see them. I am actually thinking of going back to Trois-Rivières if they ever do any gigs in their own backyard. They poured their heart into this album and it shows. Everything sounds great and I felt the vocals weren't drowned by the rest of the instruments. Matt Laro does a great job between the Growls and the Clean vocals. His Death Metal-esque vocals don't get on my nerves like a number of Folk Metal bands out there.

On some songs I can hear the precise structure of bands like AMON AMARTH or even IRON MAIDEN. This is something I feel strongly about, the structure (or complexity) of any song, if you put your heart into it, you can feel it. At times you can feel the Traditional Heavy Metal flowing through some songs and some songs like ''Bloodbath'' or ''Rainmaker'' could have been great on a Video Game Soundtrack.

I think they could do a fine job doing some songs for Medieval Type Games or even games like Castlevania back in my day. The first thing that I heard when I listened to this album was that type of music. I am a huge video games fan and the overall feeling of some songs could translate well to that particular world. I really enjoyed this album, not because it's a local band, just because they do a fine job mixing various styles into an awesome first album. If you like bands like WILDERUN, WINTERSUN and ENSIFERUM, you are gonna love these guys. So much poise and so much potential.