Ash Of Ashes

History

The strongly poetic, emphatically artistic and aesthetic style of Ash Of Ashes is best described as epic skaldic metal.

Only every few years appears in the spiritual-natural, epic-pagan area of ​​the upscale heavy metal, a very special album classic, which seeks on a wide, artistic area of ​​its kind. And 'Down the White Waters', the debut longplayer of Ash Of Ashes, joins this exquisite guild quite clearly and sublime.

The always accessible, often highly catchy and even clearly hit-capable compositions wander with healthy pride on melancholy, partly sad levels.
But the musical soul of the band is free of bitterness and always focused on timeless aesthetics.

Composing master Skaldir, who became known with the dissolved predecessor group Hel, wrote and arranged fabulously independent songs full of longing and passion, which inevitably instantly grab the soul of a real lover of such art.

Only the catchy instrumental 'Springar' is based on a traditional melody that Skaldir interpreted and arranged in his own way.


By means of playfully beguiling folklore offerings of the Scandinavian key-fiddle, the 'Nyckelharpa', the two numbers 'Ash to Ash' and 'Springar' are refined into shiny genre pearls. Here is Mathias Gyllengahm, otherwise active in the bands Norrsinnt and Utmarken, fully in his favorite element.

In turn, the track 'Seven Winters Long' is upgraded as attractively as stylish by the Norwegian-based, shamanic active nature-lover Runahild with the Hardanger fiddle.

As unmistakable influences for the majestically uplifting, Nordic-blissful music of Ash Of Ashes, Bathory during the Viking era is called by the author with full conviction, as well as the splendor of Moonsorrow as well as traditional Metal like Helloween's 'Keeper of the Seven Keys' albums along with the eternal classics of Iron Maiden.

(source: Metalmessage.de)