Rating: 4.0

Country: Switzerland

Genre: Folk/Death Metal

Record Label: Black Tower

Release Date: 2008

Track list:
1. Intro
2. Shylob
3. Lothloryen
4. Escaroth
5. Balrox
6. Ithylien
7. Valynor
8. Gondolyn
9. Turyn
10. Telperyon and Laurelyn

Band Website: Minhyriath

Minhyriath - Gondolyn

Ugh, like the previous times I tried listening to this disc, I'm fighting the serious urge to put on something else with some actual bite to it. Something like Bathory or Kampfar. Something with powerful riffs and atmosphere. Something that is not Minhyriath. This is apparently Tolkien-inspired folk/death metal, though you can put death between some big, fat, ironic quote marks. What we have here are simple down-tuned power metal riffs with the occasional groove and thrash lick to lend some body to it, with constant whiny bag-pipes (don't remember those from the books or movies...) and sporadic flutes overlaid on top, and this constant thumping drum computer that gets seriously grating during the few faster passages of this album. Add grunty narration and attempts at epic clean singing and you have Gondolyn.

The guitars barely do anything interesting during the entire discs running time, contentedly staying in this unchallenging, frolicking, chugging mode, at this constant somnolent medium pace, while bagpipes and flutes play the same damn type of melody over and over again, splurged all over nearly every moment of every song of this disc, without any real thought for composition and effective songwriting. They're there because this is folk metal and they just need to be there I guess, though tuning them out means listening to the chugs that are almost riffs and powerchords that are almost leads and that isn't very engaging either. Songs bleed into each other, segments seem to just be slotted one after the other with little regard for narrative song construction and there is no tension to speak of. This is folk metal's equivalent to elevator music, to be put on in the background to fill the soundspace without distracting from whatever it is you're doing. Yup, those sure are some guitars and bagpipes...

While it's not offensively bad, this is just so bland and samey that it is almost worse than listening to a horribly bad album. Those can at least be humorous in the same way that a bad b-movie can be amusing. Gondolyn though is just boring and ultimately an epic waste of time.

June 30, 2009