Band:	Tengwar
Album:	The Pilgrims March
Style:	Folk metal
Release date:	2005
A review by:	Undercraft

01. Marching South
02. The Pilgrim's Stone

1 portion of Folk Metal with extra cheese to go

I was searching the web today and I stumbled across a Folk Metal band from Argentina, and since we don't get enough Metal bands from the "gauchos" land, I decided to give it a try. To my surprise the band didn't had any album out, only a 2-song Demo, completely downloadable from their website. Since this guys decided to give away their music for free, I decided to review this Demo.

First of all, what a nice cover art, really cool and folky too (it was done by Stephen Hickman). The production also surprised me, I wasn't expecting such good sound from these Argentinean combo.

The sound is basically Folk Metal mixed up with Power Metal elements, and a lot of "choirs" (a lot of guys doing back-up vocals) . Other instruments include tin whistles, flutes, bagpipes, fiddles and crumhorns.
The Demo kicks off with "Marching South" a song with a lot of backing vocals, and with a epic feel to it. My problem with this song is that the main vocals sound too Power Metal, the singer tries to reach high scales that the music really don't require, it ruins a great deal of the song.

Things get better with the next song "The Pilgrim's Stone". This one has an upbeat, more fast rhythm, yeah the singer is still there annoying me, but the instruments sound really well, specially the folk ones, the fiddle and the bagpipes really shine in this song.

My advice? Get another singer with less cheese on his vocal chords. Folk Metal doesn't have to be a Folk version of Power Metal, Folk Metal has an own identity, that's why is a sub-genre. Besides my negative view, this will please every Folk Metal fan out there, you can take that for granted, and remember, the 2 songs are downloadable from their site.