Vredesvävd

Vredesvävd finds Finntroll sounding focused, controlled and unmistakably themselves. The familiar ingredients remain intact: black-metal abrasion, bouncing folk rhythms, orchestral keyboards and Swedish-language vocals shaped into trollish theatre. What changes is the balance. This is a darker and more compact record than some of the band’s more exuberant work, with less emphasis on drinking-song immediacy and more on atmosphere.

The craft is unquestionable, but the album often feels like a refinement of Finntroll’s language rather than a new chapter.

Att Döda Med En Sten makes that shift clear. The riffs are sharp and aggressive, but the keyboards create unease rather than celebration. Ormfolk is more recognizably anthemic, using a sturdy rhythmic bounce and a strong chorus without collapsing into novelty. Finntroll have always been at their best when the folk element affects the actual movement of the riffs, and several songs here preserve that principle.

The production is excellent. Guitars, percussion and orchestration occupy distinct spaces, allowing dense arrangements to remain readable. Grenars Väg and Vid Häxans Härd benefit from that clarity, especially when choirs and layered keyboards enter around the heavier passages. The band sound powerful without becoming excessively polished.

The weakness is not execution but memorability. Many tracks are individually effective yet occupy similar emotional territory. Forsen, Myren and Mask contain good details, but their hooks do not separate themselves as decisively as the strongest material from Jaktens Tid or Nattfödd. The album’s brevity prevents fatigue, although it also makes the lack of a truly overwhelming centrepiece more noticeable.

Vredesvävd nevertheless demonstrates how durable Finntroll’s core idea remains. Few bands can combine theatrical keyboards, savage vocals and dance-derived rhythms without sounding either embarrassed or comedic. Finntroll still approach the mixture as a legitimate metal language rather than a gimmick.

This is a strong, professional late-period album, concise enough to reward repeated listening and atmospheric enough to avoid self-parody. It does not redefine the band, but it proves their established vocabulary can still produce convincing work.