With:	Markus Toivonen - Guitars, Percussion
Conducted by:	Azhidahak
Published:	15.10.2004
Band profile:	Ensiferum
Album info:	Iron

01. Ferrum Aeternum
02. Iron
03. Sword Chant
04. Mourning Heart (Interlude)
05. Tale Of Revenge
06. Lost In Despair
07. Slayer Of Light
08. Into Battle
09. LAI LAI HEI
10. Tears
11. Battery [Metallica cover] [Japanese bonus]

01. Ferrum Aeternum :
Well, this is the intro for the second album. The intro starts with a sad mood. When I wrote the sad beginning Jari (ex-member) suggested that the Intro -or the ladder part of it- should be less sad and more uplifting to get the intro in the correct mood for the second song "Iron". I however wanted to maintain the sad feeling also in the song, so I wrote a B-section in the intro. Which I too liked very much. The B-section became less sad and more grand or majestic Ennio Morriconish western piece. So it was the perfect song to preceed the second song "Iron".

02. Iron:
"Iron" is sort of a continuation to the western motif. In some ways the tempo and the drumbeat has similarities to the song in our first album, "Hero In A Dream". The first bridge-part begins with acoustic guitars which inforces the western-like quality. The second bridge-part includes a very stylish guitar-solo played skilfully by Jari. All the lyrics in the album were made by Jari and he never wanted to reveal the true meaning of the lyrics. So I can't really say much about the lyrics in the album.

03. Sword Chant:
This is a pure folk-"power"-metal song, which is the only song from the album that is downtuned to D. The verse-parts begin with a "Rob Halford"-style vocalisations with basic heavy metal -style guitar riffs. And the end half of both verses are sort of finnish folk style melodies mixed with metal and growling vocals. Also the bridge-part of this song incorporates the acoustic guitars and the folk style goes perhaps a little bit over the top, giving it kinda campy feel to it.

04. Mourning Heart -INTERLUDE:
Like the title reveals, this is an interlude. It is a beatiful Finnish type of folk music. The use of Kantele and 12-string guitars made it possible to reach the correct ambience required to achieve right mood for the song. It is also sort of an introduction for the next song.

05. Tale of Revenge:
Our record company made a single out of this song. This song practically has all the "Ensiferum" elements: a mixture of growling and small amount of clean vocals, a collection of fast paced and slow "ballady" parts, a lot of hightened guitar melodies, some heavier riffs and a small acoustic part. The verses have a 7/4 timing, which is nice.

06. Lost in Despair:
This is the oldest song in the album. It is a very different Ensiferum song because it's melancholic and very slow. Almost all of the vocals are clean. Kantele is spicing up the song a little bit. The most appropriate definition to the genre of the song is a "heavy ballad". Well, at least in our standards, that is.

07. Slayer of Light:
This is the last song that we finished in the album. We were short of one song one month before the studio recordings. Jari suggested that we make one truly aggressive and very fast song in the album. I had one riff (the main riff in the song) that I was working on that I called "Slayer". So Jari said that we should start work the song based on that riff. Then I wrote the verse riff and Jari wrote the rest. According to Jari, the title of the song was based on the lyrics that he wrote, but I think there is little humor involved because the song has echoes from the legendary Slayer.

08. Into Battle:
This might sound kind of strange, but this song combines power metal and melodic death metal. The track is long, fast and it has several different parts in it. The chorus is consciously enriched with cliched power metal elements, which gives the choruses a fun feel to it. The song also has a hilarious over one and a half minute irish heavy jam bridge-part in it.

09. LAI LAI HEI:
Well, this is by far the longest song in the album. It kinda divides into two different sections: slower and more folkish beginning, and faster and heavier other half. It is in its entirity a very folkish song. A part of the lyrics are in Finnish. Singing in Finnish is brilliantly repeated as a canon in the end. The song also has one of my favourite guitar solos ever. That Jari sure can play.

10. Tears:
This is purely a ballad which has no typical heavy band elements in it. We decided to use only acoustic instruments and keyboards. The entire song is sung beatifully by Kaisa Saari from the Finnish folk band Tarujen Saari. She gave the song the feminine quality it so much needed. This last track gives a perfect contrast to the other songs in the album and it is also a nice way to end the album in a more sensitive note.