Well I was right about Scandinavia, Galar was founded in 2004 in Norway. And how about the music? Well I was right about that as well, it is a great mix of black with viking/folk.

 

When I heard Skogsvad the first time I was pleasantly surprised. I really liked this album immediately. The compositions are great, and never become boring because of the variety. Fast black metal parts, which remind me of Kampfar go very well together with the slow and melodic parts. Next to the traditional metal instruments like the guitar, bass and drums Galar also uses some nice flutes, piano and other classical instruments, which are very well integrated in the metal parts. But you will also hear some parts that are just classical. The clean vocals are very nice as well. The production is good, it’s well mixed and fits very well to the music.

 

It’s not new, most of the things have been done before by other bands, but the compositions are so well written it really doesn’t matter to me, Skogsvad is just a very good album.