Band:	Scythia
Album:	...Of Exile
Style:	Folk metal
Release date:	September 23, 2011
A review by:	Doc G.

01. Prelude
02. Spirit Of The Quest
03. Sleeping Village
04. Forgotten Forest
05. Fallen King
06. Voice Of The Sword
07. For The King
08. Fortress
09. Dies Irae II
10. Hobarth's Inn

Holy hell, talk about anticlimactic. You always want to root for the independent bands with not the dollar for top-of-the-line studio wizardry trying out ambitious projects outside the usual guitar-bass-drums-vocals scheme. Despite the Scythia really overcoming blatantly amateurish production with a good mix on the keyboards/oboe/riff front, the overall song writing is about as aimless as you could imagine.

The band faces almost the exact opposite issue that other folk metal bands do; while certain bands like, oh, let's say Korpiklaani as the grandest example, blow their wad on a single melody repeated to death, with absolutely no kind of tension or remotely intelligent design, Scythia seem to go on a constant build-up which just fizzles out at the end of each song.

Considering the state they were in on their debut, it's safe to say some improvements have been made. Namely, there is some real evident thought put into the vocals/vocal arrangements this time, possibly being the only real thick sounding part in the whole mix. The organs are pretty solid sounding, and the oboe is something that seems to have some actual purpose this time around. The interplay between all these new segments seems to be actually somewhat constructed in interesting ways.

Unfortunately, all these improvements don't add up to a whole lot, as it's a constant problem on ...Of Exile to see the fuse lit but no bang of any kind. Meek, quiet, tame are good words to describe this. Regardless of what types of riffs are being put out there, it's another one that just fails to get any point across.