Holy fucking awesome! An all-Finnish tour? There was no way I was missing this one, so off I go on my way to Vancouver – a three hour journey by bus, ferry, and skytrain, check into my hotel across the street from the venue, and explore the city before the show.

Just let me say a few words about the venue before I get into talking about the bands. The Red Room, a relatively small place, is one of the best places to see a show for a couple reasons. The main floor is two steps down from the rest of the room, lined with tables or railings with stools, making it easy to see from anywhere, even if you want to sit for a bit. There are pool tables and TVs (hockey playoffs were on) for entertainment between sets, not to mention 3 bars!

Anyway, on to the bands. Titans Eve was already playing when we arrived. They’re from Vancouver and play a thrashy metal that sounded quite raw but not bad, and following them was Sinned, also from Vancouver and playing a heavier death metal with some seriously guttural vocals. Something to nod the head to, anyway. Someone gave me a free copy of Titans Eve’s demo so I’ll be looking into them a bit more closely soon.

I was primarily there for Swallow the Sun who I saw a few years ago opening for Katatonia (which they’re scheduled to do again in the fall). They played a good mix of new material (These Woods Breathe Evil, Falling World, Sleeping Swans, New Moon) and stuff from previous albums (Swallow, These Hours of Despair, Descending Winters). Apparently they’ve had some technical difficulties on this tour, but everything was sounding great here and Mikko Kotamäki’s clean vocals translated well to the live setting. STS is one of the few supporting bands I’ll go see no matter who’s headlining… the quality of their music never disappoints me.

So with a huge grin on my face I still have Moonsorrow and Finntroll to look forward to! I’ve never really listened to Moonsorrow, maybe a few songs here and there, so I had no expectations of them and man, were they ever amazing! I’ll definitely be seeing them again next time they’re around. There was an appreciative uproar from crowd the moment they burst onto the stage with the first dose of catchy Viking metal tunes. The energy in the place skyrocketed and you could tell these guys were having a ton of fun on stage, beers in hand. Frontman Ville Sorvali gives a brief lesson in Finnish history between songs, something about this guy coming to Finland to spread Christianity – to which he yelled “And do you know what we did? WE FUCKING KILLED HIM!”

They played almost a full set and by the time 11pm rolled around (when most shows I’ve been to are winding down), Finntroll was yet to play. I can’t believe it has taken me this long to see them, of all the times they’ve toured, and apparently I’ve been missing out on quite the show all these years. Fuck!

Moonsorrow set the bar fairly high for them but despite this Finntroll put on one hell of a show. (Though I did prefer Moonsorrow). You pretty much had to summon every ounce of energy left in your body to survive the set, as they packed it full of the speediest tracks to inspire the whole lower floor to be turned into one big chaotic moshpit which broke out into some weird folk-jig every now and then. That’s the beauty of a folk metal show. As for the setlist I really have no idea. By this point I was exhausted, and I’m not all that familiar with the names of Finntroll’s songs anyway. So I guess this is a bit of a half-assed review…

I left feeling thoroughly satisfied and completely destroyed, and walked back across the street to the hotel with “Lalalalalala TROLLHAMMAREN!” stuck in my head.

To sum it up – whoever put this package together is a genius. From what I witnessed, The Finnish Metal Tour received an overwhelming response from the crowd and I could see this being a successful yearly tour, which I think is the plan. We can only hope!

The opening track “These Woods Breathe Evil” is a ferocious start with surprising black metal influences and a faster pace than what we’re used to from Swallow The Sun. “Falling World” has a refreshing upbeat tune with clean vocals and a beautiful melody that haunts me well after listening to it. Mikko Kotamäki not only delivers harsh growls and screams but is a brilliant singer as well, and it’s nice to hear this for a change.

What makes this album such a pleasure to listen to is the perfect combination of heaviness and beauty, and few bands do it better than Swallow The Sun. Each element fits together flawlessly, from eerie melodies to full blown aggression. New Moon keeps up the traditional doom/death sound of the band while being rather diverse and engaging, making it easily their best album yet in my opinion.

9/10