Band:	Folkstorm
Album:	Het Stille Lied Van De Maan
Style:	Black metal
Release date:	February 2012
A review by:	Doc G.

01. I
02. II
03. III
04. IV
05. Het Stille Lied Van De Maan

Certainly one of the most pretentious things I've ever received for review, if not one of the most aimless.

Now, the name of this one-man-band might give you the wrong impression, this really isn't much of what you would call a "folk" type of band. It's closer to one of those glacial, winding nature-ish type black metal bands. Now, you're probably thinking something along the lines of Wolves In The Throne Room...Well, that certainly does seem like the aim. That large, cold and distant black metal. Here's the thing, there's being able to write material that moves at a glacial pace, but works, then there's this; 15 minutes - and I'm being generous here - worth of material painfully stretched over a gruelling 70 minutes. It's repetitive with no real progression of any kind, yet there's this weak attempt at trying to veil this stagnation with some bland symphonic breaks.

There's one single track that seems to throw some sauce on this dry, overcooked plate full. The 4th track, creatively titled "IV", actually has some really cool sort of post/shoegaze leads blanketed over a lot of it. Oddly enough, it's the shortest track on the album, clocking in at a mind-blowingly brief 8:20. This song actually sounds pretty cool, but it's difficult to tell if it is genuinely a really good song, or the mind is simply overreacting to something that doesn't induce suicide worthy boredom.

Little lesson; whilst writing 9 minute + songs, take the listener on a journey somewhere. It's like going to an art gallery or science exhibit with one of those assholes who has to hold you back at the most mundane sections. You can see an interesting part of your tour coming up around the corner, but this dick has to stand there pretending to be enthralled in some modern art pile of garbage for 45 minutes. Yeah, this album is that guy.