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At first I thought Martolea was a Mexican band with Aztec/Inca influences. Upon further investigation, I saw how wrong I was. Martolea is, in fact, a solo project of Romanian Alin Primus; the man who played pipes on Negura Bunget's OM album.

The music on this demo was inspired by nature, while the concept of the songs and titles comes from mythological characters that live deep in the woods. There are no harsh vocals here, just clean/ghostly spoken words in Alin's native tongue telling tales of folkloric contents. Many traditional instruments come into play such as pipes, flutes, horn, mouth harp, caval and bucium. Fast Pagan Metal tempos with distorted riffs and tremolo pickings are combined with ambient and calmer moments filled with folksy tonalities and a touch of atmospheric keyboards. All along, this demo keeps a melodic touch and one, including myself, could only hope to hear more of this Romanian Pagan/Folksy act, especially a full-length with professional production work.

My favorite tracks are "Muma Padurii" and "Samca".

1. Caii lui SanToader
2. Muma Padurii
3. Martolea
4. Samca
5. Fata Padurii