Tyr - Eric The Red

*=Staff's pick	The Edge* Regin Smidur* Dreams The Wild Rover* Stýrisvolurin Ólavur Riddararós* Rainbow Warrior Ramund Hin Unge* Alive Eric The Red God Of War Hail To The Hammer

Genre	Folk/Heavy Metal	Heri Joensen	Vocals
Tracks	12	Heri Joensen	Guitar
Runningtime	70 Min.	Terji Skibenæs	Guitar
Label	Napalm Records	Gunnar H. Thomsen	Bass
Release	27 March 2006	Kári Streymoy	Drums
Country	Faeroes Islands	-	Keyboards
Similar artists	Otyg, Falconer, Solstice

A band from the Faeroes Islands, when did you last hear of that? I know I haven't before the discovery of the band Tyr. A little lesson in geography might come in handy here: these islands with a population of 48.000 are located in the North Atlantic north of Scotland, west of Norway and south-east of Iceland and is a part of Denmark but that has self-government. This used to be Viking territory and in some sense you could sort Tyr under the genre of Viking Metal without being terribly wrong, if you haven't already figured that out since Tyr was the god of justice in the Nordic mythology. Eric The Red was originally released independently in 2003 and by the attention of Napalm Records it now sees a world-wide release with a couple of bonus tracks.

A way to easily describe Tyr is to say that they perform folklore transformed into mighty metal hymns and what serves as their biggest favour is the language. Tyr use a lot of choirs in their songs and when they use their native tongue you get something that is out of the ordinary. The language, that to me sounds very close to the icelandic language, puts a great deal of the final viking touch to the music and that is very well presented in the mighty and catchy mid-tempo track Regin Smidur. Most songs go in mid-tempo and the bard parts of Blind Guardian is something that comes to mind at some occasions and with the folk inspired melodies, swedish band Falconer comes as a close comparison at many times.

Not that I ever has been to a real Irish pub but a song like the traditional The Wild Rover is exactly what I expect to hear if I ever get to Ireland. You might have heard it with The Dubliners and Tyr puts a nice metal touch to it with the guitars and not least the screaming solo. Another favourite is the track Ramond Hin Unge that starts slowly in a folk-metal hymn-ish way but has the pace quickened with a galloping rhythm and with some classic metal guitar parts. Moreover, the guitars are something that shine as very solid through out the album. The last two tracks were not on the original release but is a couple of Tyr's earlier work, How Far To Asgaard from 2002 to be precise, and the sound is thereafter.

The downside is that there is far too much mid-tempo on Eric The Red. The weakness with Tyr, besides the abundance of mid-tempo tracks, is that their own songs is not as good as the arranged traditional ones. Even if the album has an even level and the songs all go in the same kind of style, it lacks the real spirit in those tracks that are not traditional songs as in the track Rainbow Warrior.

Even though there is a stomping flow in most of the mid-tempo tracks, it tends to become too much of that pace and some more speed would not do this band harm. But enjoy the mighty and epic hymns in small doses and this is great music that wakes the viking spirit within you.

Production	Vocals	Compositions
6	7	7

Summary
7 chalices of 10 - Thomas