Back in May of this year I made the 2 hour trek to the Riot Room in Kansas City, Missouri to see Paganfest V. This years iteration was the usual mix of big name headliners in Finland’s Korpiklaani and Turisas, a little different flair with Taiwans’s Chthonic and Kentuckian Winterhymn. Of course my main reason for attending was to see to two Finnish folk heavyweights, who rarely make it to the midwest, let alone Missouri.

I love to drink. I am not an alcoholic (or am I?) but I do enjoy a tasty beverage now and then. There’s never a bad time for good friends and a good game of the drink. So, naturally I should love a band like Korpiklaani with their anthems of inebriation, however this band requires […]

So after 5 years and four albums of balls out partying and after a major label change, it appears that Finland’s Forest Clan have hit that part of the party where you start to taste bile, slur your speech, get all sad and moody, tell all your friends you love them loudly and hug strangers. […]

Finland’s prolific, premier folk rocker return with album number four and after teasing me with three albums of superb folkish, pub rock littered with buzz killing somber moments, the forest clan have finally unleashed the ultimate, feel good, forest rock, beer swilling, sylph moshing fun fest. As I mentioned, Korpiklaani’s last three albums were a […]

Dedication (n): getting up at 5.30am to interview one of the most exciting bands in Finnish folk metal who unfortunately (for me) happen to reside in an entirely different time zone. Then finding out one of you must be on daylight savings and consequently staying up until 1.30am interviewing one of the most exciting bands in Finnish folk metal. Korpiklaani literally translates to ‘Forest Clan’, and they play an exciting and novel form of organic folk melodies and traditional metal. I conversed with bass player Jarkko Aaltonen regarding the bands roots, their live act and their future endeavours.