Band:	Ensiferum
Album:	Two Paths
Style:	Extreme folk metal
Release date:	September 15, 2017
A review by:	Doc G.

01. Ajattomasta Unesta
02. For Those About To Fight For Metal
03. Way Of The Warrior
04. Two Paths
05. King Of Storms
06. Feast With Valkyries
07. Don't You Say
08. I Will Never Kneel
09. God Is Dead
10. Hail To The Victor
11. Unettomaan Aikaan
12. God Is Dead [Alternative version]
13. Don't You Say [Alternative version]

Ladies and gentlemen, we're getting old.

?Because, you know, contractual obligation albums only happen to old bands, right?...Right?

Well, shit, it looks like Ensiferum are indeed old. For over the first decade of their career they seemed downright invincible. The era of invincibility was abruptly put to an end with Unsung Heroes. Then came One Man Army, while not being peak Ensiferum, at least gave the impression they were making a return to form.

Now we have Two Paths, and good god almighty, is it a bore. An absolute trouser-shitting embarrassment? No. That would have at least been interesting. Two Paths still sounds like quintessential Ensiferum, just quintessential Ensiferum done half-assed. For better or worse (closer to worse), everything sounds routine here - their signature rhythm guitar, beefed up with those rich, grandiose synthesizers. You've got the harsh screams, the chanting gang vocals, the female vocals dabbled in here and there?yadda, yadda, yadda. It's all there, but it just sounds like they went into rehearsal, wrote half a song, then said "fuck it, let's call it a day." Rinse and repeat for eleven tracks. Occasionally they start to hit some kind of stride with "King Of Storms" or certain segments of "I Will Never Kneel", but those only feel ambitious in relativity to the rest of the album. The best of Two Paths doesn't hold a candle to even the worst from From Afar.

The only thing noticeably different about Two Paths is the heavier presence of clean vocals. Not the epic, climactic clean vocals, but rather the grunty singing that was kept to a minimum until now. This attempt at singing isn't awful in and of itself, but simply accentuates how tame and un-epic Two Paths is.

Is Ensifeurm dead in the water? No, probably not. We soon-to-be-geezers are just experiencing what happens to all geezers as they begin to transition into geezerdom: witnessing bands we remember as fresh and exciting enter contractual obligation phase. If you aren't amongst the geezers and just showing up to the party now, do yourself a favor and give Ensiferum a shot with any other album.

Ensiferum's days of wowing us are probably gone, but it's unlikely they'll serve up any train wrecks either, just more One Man Army's and Two Paths.