I’m not interested to judge the well-known and respectable Graveland history but to give an honest review to that new album of that polish band. I will probably surprise a lot of underground maniacs but for me Graveland are tending to be too conservative, their last three releases are too similar and that new album haven’t something special to say. It’s another time a good example of pagan, and Bathory-like type of pagan metal with some black roots, in the very background, but Graveland already expressed those emotions with a must like "100 Swords" and the good follower "Following the Voice of Blood", a band like Juvenes, with less experience but with a greater will to emerge, have recently done a great album like "Riddle of Steel", with a more pompous symphonic influence, but without losing its extreme involvement.
If you are a Graveland fan this album is another brick but looking the actual scene situation there isn’t the necessary quality to win the challenge. The Graveland’s music represent one face of the pagan culture, its warlike spirit and in this vision they can manage to picture the scene, but I think that a myth like this polish band should gives other demonstration of its strong roots. It’s true that there aren’t not so many bands playing like them and I can understand that it isn’t too simple to evolve a music like that, probably the better advice that I can give to Fudali is to take a strong breath, work for a longer period on his songs and come back in the future with another monument, because the actual release isn’t essential and the interesting project to mix the pagan metallic blackness of Graveland with the pagan and folkish spirit of Lord Wind that was done in "Immortal Pride" has been apparently set apart...