Week 39: Týr - Lord of Lies

NOTE: Due to a holiday that wasn't even foreseeable 12 months ago when I originally started planning Monday Metal Treasures, this is posted early so you still get to see the following week's entry, despite it not being a Monday.



The artist: Týr are a particularly interesting folk metal band hailing from Faroe Islands. Their country of origin will easily strike out as it may be a country you've never even heard of. Infact, Metal-Archives only lists seven metal bands who originated from Faroe Islands. That's right, just a mere seven! There's more metal bands that ever found in Saudi Arabia and Syria than in Faroe Islands. Not only do they have an unusual country origin, they also incorporate progressive metal elements to folk metal whereas many folk metal bands have generally mixed their style with black, melodic death or power metal.

The album: Ragnarok is Týr's concept album released in 2006 and already it's been five years since its release. Ragnarok feels like the ideal Norse mythology lyrical-based album, even if roughly a third of the lyrics are spoken in Farose. This album as well as the rest of their albums in general show the world what Farose language is like. As suggested by the album title, Ragnarok covers the future events in battles resulting in the death of the Norse gods. This feels how Norse mythology themed metal music should be done, although the amount of interlude tracks won't make it a straight forward listen and will require patience in order to get the most from the album.

The song: Following the interlude track named Victory which has the sounds of entering a very lively tavern, Lord of Lies shows up right away with the loud folky guitars that makes you think "Damn, this is really good." and then it's succeeded by riffs with a much lower tone. Even with the darker riffs, the song still insists with the brighter atmosphere to march on in the story. It will go as far as showing off some very highly tuned solos and you can sense some power metal from this track. That and Heri Joensen's vocals make for some unique sound from folk metal. The song's lyrics covers Thor and the serpent Jörmungandr. This is closer to the end of the album and forsees prophecies of the true end of Ragnarok. Overall, you have a song with some extremely catchy melodies with some mixed tones to show the dark side of the prophecy but also the confidence to fight on.