A Grove of Ashes and Aspens

Now Playing: Of Ice and Blood by Wind Rose

My immediate thoughts are as follows: this album is fantastic and I love it and it can do no wrong. It is 42 minutes of straight bangers.

It takes the epic Wind Rose sound we’ve come to expect over the last two albums and brings back bits of the sound from their first two albums, making the entire experience very fun and almost dreamlike in a way.

The opening track, Of Ice and Blood, is an instrumental track that serves as an introduction to the next track, Dance of the Axes, but also to the album as a whole.

Dance of the Axes combines the ballad-like qualities of earlier songs like Fallen Timbers with their more recent dwarf metal sound, creating a large, symphonic masterpiece.

The Great Feast Underground is the successor to Drunken Dwarves we never knew we needed. It’s just a beautiful track through and through.

Rock and Stone is, well, Rock and Stone. It’s a really good song and serves as a masterful example of what made their cover of Diggy Diggy Hole such a good idea. Big epic symphonic power metal, much like.

To be a Dwarf is a fun song and feels reminiscent of their older stuff. It feels a lot more folk metal-esque than a lot of the other stuff on the album, but I really like that. Blurring the lines between metal subgenres is really fun when done well like this. I want more dwarven symphonic power/folk metal. Give me my 5 minute long songs about dwarves doing dwarf shit.

Home of the Twilight is a much more classically power metal song. It has the more upbeat and heroic sound and driving beat you typically find in power metal, but it still has the elements of symphonic metal and folk metal that make me absolutely love their music. It gives that epic “I’m going into battle” feel that is always so fun.

Trollslayer is the title track, and it’s just an absolute blast. It’s truly a blend of their entire style and sound, and it fits right in. I love it, 10/10, no notes.

Legacy of the Forge and No More Sorrow also have a lot more of the folk metal sound than other songs on the album. They still have a lot of that epic symphonic power metal sound, but they also have a distinctly folk metal twist and I like it.

No More Sorrow also has a very distinct feel similar to Tomorrow Has Come, where it feels sad, but still almost hopeful in a way. It’s very well done.

Overall, great album and very worth the wait. It lives up to the hype.