Turisas – Stand Up And Fight!

Releasedate: 28-02-2011; Label: Century media
By: Elvira Visser

The Finnish band Turisas, known for their great live shows and creating the term “Battle Metal”, is presenting their new CD “Stand Up And Fight”. This new album is a loose continuation of the story from their previous album “The Varangian Way”. The story starts where the previous one had left us, however this new album is not a sequel as it stand on its own. To be able to write this album the band had to take some time of from touring, this happened back in 2009. Mathias Nygård had already been working on the new concept and storyline, clearly having in mind what he wanted with this album.

Their new album “Stand Up And Fight” has a lot of layers. The album is bold and extravagant due to using real orchestration and choral harmonies that clearly add to these songs. Although sometimes the listener will get the feeling that this is way closer to a soundtrack from an epic movie. A Viking story where pirates come along mixed with a vivacious bombastic atmosphere. With this album a lot of effort is put on the orchestral harmonies while sometimes forgetting the metal. For example there is a whole choir singing on “End Of An Empire”. Also a lot of trumpets can be heard on the CD. In my opinion they should look for something to do this on stage, or give a few gigs with a full orchestra because this is clearly what makes this album what it is. I am not sure how it would sound with the band on stage and the rest on a tape.

Line Up:
Warlord Nygård – vocals, orchestral programming & keyboards
Jussi Wickström – guitar, acoustic guitar
Olli Vänskä – acoustic and electric violin
Hannes Horma – bass, backing vocals
Netta Skog – accordion
Tude Lehtonen – drums and percussion

Tracklist: 01. The March Of The Varangian Guard 02. Take The Day! 03. Hunting Pirates 04. OPQRSTU! – VWXYUQTU! (Venetoi! – Prasinoi!) 05. Stand Up And Fight 06. The Great Escape 07. Fear The Fear 08. End Of An Empire 09. The Bosphorus Freezes Over

Links:
Turisas MySpace
Turisas Official