Folk and metal are two types of music that you might not think go together, but folk metal is a genre that’s been around in Finland since the 90s.
With the emergence of relatively new acts, such as Ritva Nero, the folk metal tradition appears to be still going strong in Finland, too.
What Is Folk Metal?
Folk metal is a genre of music that fuses heavy metal with traditional folk music. It combines the intense, powerful sounds of heavy metal guitars and drums with the sounds of folk instruments, such as fiddles and bagpipes.
Folk metal has also been known to incorporate traditional styles of folk singing, as well as traditional folk dances in music videos and during live performances.
There are many regional variations of folk metal, with some of the genre's earliest acts coming out of England and Ireland.
The different folk music of each country often influences what that country’s folk metal sounds like. For example, in the British Isles, folk metal is often heavily infused by Celtic folk music styles.
However, folk metal bands have also been known to choose to focus on a style from other regions. It’s not unheard of for a Spanish folk metal band to play Nordic folk music, for instance.
Among regional styles, there are different sub genres like medieval metal, which combines heavy metal with medieval folk music.
Additionally, specific folk metal bands choose to focus their music on different types of heavy metal, from black metal to power metal.
Throughout the ‘90s, folk metal bands appeared across Europe, but the genre really started to blow up in the early 2000s when it rose in popularity in Finland. Some popular earlier folk metal bands from Finland include Finntroll, Ensiferum, Korpiklaani, Turisas, and Moonsorrow.
A New Era of Finnish Folk Metal
Formed only in 2017, Ritva Nero are the new kids on the block in Finnish folk metal. They’re reinventing the heavy metal genre and calling their music “party metal folk.”
Ritva Nero recently released their debut album, Immortal Tradition, on January 14th, 2022. The album features 9 songs, each of which combines heavy metal rock with a different style of folk dance music, including polka, mazurka, and maanitus.
The band also released a music video of a song featuring the latter style of Finnish folk dance, titled Master of Maanitus.
The music video alternates between black-and-white shots of the band members playing their various rock and folk instruments, and shots of masked, sweatsuit-clad dancers performing folk dances in various settings. Overall, the track and it’s accompanying music video are upbeat and evoke feelings of spring just on the horizon at the end of a long, cold Finnish winter.
The other songs on Immortal Tradition vary in tempo and style. For example, there’s the fast-paced, polka frenzy-inducing track 4: Megapolka. The following track, Rahapolska Helsingista, starts off much slower before building up to an epic finish worthy of soundtracking a cinematic climax.
In fact, if any of the songs from Immortal Tradition ever find their way to copyright free music sites, they would all make pretty epic soundtrack material.
Ritva Nero’s band members incorporate soprano saxophone, Finnish bagpipes, and nyckelharpa into their songs, alongside traditional heavy metal-style drums and a rock-style bass.
More About Ritva Nero
Ritva Nero is comprised of Sanna Salonen (soprano saxophone), Petri Prauda (Finnish bagpipes) Emilia Lajunen (nyckelharpa), Jani Snellman (electric bass), and Patrik Fält (drums).
The band formed in 2017 when Salonen was getting ready to compose and perform her Bachelor's degree concert for the Sibelius Academy Folk Music Department in Helsinki, Finland.
Salonen wanted to combine folk music that had been popular in the 1800s with the fast, hard heavy metal drumming style. Her idea was that the low frequency of the heavy metal drumming wouldn’t detract from the folk music’s nuanced melodies.
Salonene met her first two bandmates, Prauda and Lajunen, in the Sibelius Academy Folk Music Department. They then asked Fält and Snellman to join, as they were already well known for their rock bass playing and heavy metal drumming, respectively.
The band played their first performance at Salonen’s Bachelor's degree concert, and their unique style of Finnish folk metal was heard for the first time by the public. The music was a hit with the audience, and Ritva Nero went on to perform at several folk music festivals across Europe.
In 2021 Ritva Nero signed with groundbreaking Finnish label Bafe’s Factory. Immortal Traditions is their first album and was preceded by the digital single Trepatska Thrasher.
Summary
Finland has been leading the way in folk metal since the early 2000s, and Finnish artists like Ritva Nero continue to develop new styles, such as party metal folk.
It’s refreshing to see that traditional styles of folk music and dance can be combined with more modern genres to keep them alive and breathe new life into traditions that have hundreds of years of history.
Bands like Ritva Nero can continue to bridge gaps between genres, with the ability to play both rock and folk concerts and festivals, bringing new sounds to the ears of listeners young and old alike.
