Arkona – Slovo (2011)

Two years have passed after their impressive “Goi, Rode, Goi!” album and Arkona is finally back with an even better release names “Slovo”. Featuring even more engaging Pagan/Folk Metal compositions, the Russian quintet keeps improving in astronomical proportions compared to their earlier material. “Slovo” delivers a hefty dose of both beautiful Folk and aggressive compositions that deserve to be heard.

Just as “Az’” opens this release, we start getting a natural high of epic elements thanks to the excellent instrumentation and the crystal clear production behind this release. Not wasting any time, “Arkaim” delivers powerful Black Metal-esque opening riffs and transforms into lush vocal arrangements. Masha’s clean vocals are mesmerizing and when paired with the choir, they just sound even more dominant.

The switching back and forth between Folk and ‘Metal’ between songs (and within songs) is very well balanced in this release and allows the listener to fully experience the range of musical abilities of the band. “Bol’no Mne” is a very nice example of this switching back and forth. Masha’s screams are even deeper than before, and this makes her our favorite and one of a few approved female growlers in our book.

As you can expect, “Slovo” is super catchy and delivers in every single level whether you are a Folk or Pagan Metal fan. Lazar, Volk, Artist and Scream (the band member’s nicknames) handle all the instrumentation very skillfully and with expert knowledge infuse it with powerful riffing and a pounding bass guitar line (courtesy of Kniaz). For those of you that like songs in other languages (especially sung by a sexy girl’s voice) we have “Vo Moiom Sadochke”, “Potomok” (a bit weird), and the super eerie but equally intoxicating “Predok”.

Our favorite song of the album is the album titled track “Slovo”. In this song we are treated to a nice combination of all elements that make Arkona such an interesting and appealing band. Featuring some very impressive vocal arrangements near the end, “Slovo” is clearly our favorite all-time Arkona song. For the Korpiklaani fans the track “Stenka Na Stenku” will surely be the most fun song of this album.

In general, as you have read, Arkona has managed to release a near perfect album and will surely be very hard to improve upon. This band through hard work and effort has been rising through the ranks of the genre and now sit very high on top. If you like Pagan/Folk Metal and powerful growling, you are in for a treat with this amazing release.

Release: August 26th, 2011 (Europe) / September 6th, 2011 (USA)

Country: Russia