German pagan metal band Adorned Brood has been around since 1994 but I hadn’t heard the band until the release of their current album Noor. This is the band’s sixth full-length and it is out on Black Bards Enterainment label.

I’m not that familiar with many of the bands in the pagan/folk genre so I really don’t have the background to make any comparisons about Adorned Blood’s sound. A few years back, a buddy took me to a pagan metal show at Highline Ballroom and, honestly, most of the bands didn’t leave any sort of lasting memory. I’ve given Noor a few plays and really enjoyed the dichotomy between with folk and the metal-core aspects of the disc.

Adorned Brood uses traditional folk instruments like the tin whistle, flute, accordion and string to complement their crunchy power chords and blast beats. The band has six members, including female co-vocalist Anne, so there is a lot of interplay between the vocals and instrumentation within each of the disc’s ten songs. The songs range in style from the moody (almost horror movie soundtrack) “Intro” to the hard-driving, pounding drinking anthem “Noor” which combines screamo, snarled vocals with clean choruses and melodic chanting. One of the other stand-out tracks is “Sons of the Damned” which is stylistically similar to “Noor” but it includes more of the traditional folk instruments along with an instrumental piano break. There are a number of other breaks in the songs which include elements of power metal and prog rock, all of which kept me actively engaged as a listener. The disc wraps up on a strong note with the foot-stomping (mosh-pit inducing) “Drunken Sailor”.



While the majority of the vocals are sung in German, I don’t think this is an impediment to enjoying this disc. Most of the songs sound like battle anthems which transcend all language barriers. Noor makes it obvious that that Adorned Brood would be a lot of fun to see live in concert.

Links:
Adorned Brood