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I was pretty enthusiastic at first when I found out about this Russian act. Folk /Viking Metal rank in my top underground genres. Upon further listens however, the initial enthusiasm decreased quite a bit, unfortunately.

This is not the worst Folk Metal album I've heard - you know I had to endure the Forefathers before! Actually, all the folksy/acoustic/organic parts are excellent, relaxing and appropriate to this musical direction. Then come the muscular metal elements. I understand this is metal, but I find the crunchiness of the riffing overwhelming and too present. This is especially true when the overly loud bass also brings a distracting distortion in my headphones. The other oddities are the vocals. I'm really not sure that operatic vocals belong in Folk music. As for the female ones, they sound a bit strange most of the time. Some harsher tones are being offered once and a while, which makes sense. Although I seem to go down hard on Tverd, I liked the folksy moments on this disc. If only the riffing could give them more breathing room on a regular basis!

My overall favorites tracks are: "The Spring" and the instrumental "…Under the Sun's Magic Arrows". I initially noted closing track, "Russian Land's Sorrow (Kalinov's Bridge)" into my list, up until the techno keys and beat turn a cool folksy tunes into some disco spasm!