Band: OTHALAN
Country: Poland
Title: Po Krance Gor
Label: Independent
Year: 2017
Style: Melodic Folk Metal

Review:
After a successful croundfounding’s action and big support from the fans, Othalan revealed to the world its debut album titled "To the Peaks of the Mountains." “We worked on it a long time - anyway, we wanted the album to be melodic, and not to be oriented solely on the typical folkmetaller. It is not heavy metal, it is also a little ballad. I do not hide that our songs are inspired by personal experiences and people from my surroundings. For example, the song "Baltic Lullaby" refers to the character of my beloved, late grandfather, who was an artist and a sailor" told me Agnieszka Suchy, Othalan female singer, when I’d get this stuff for review. Indeed, from the first sounds of Othalan's album surprisingly very positive! The Silesian-Highlander formation set the listener's enchantment with a pleasant nostalgia of broadly developed poetics and deep and real spirituality. Some songs are similar to prayers to the Slavic gods, though in a non-obvious form. There are also a lot of musical spaces, rangingfrom old-school-rock to progressive music, associated and, quite rightly, with mountain majesty, morning mist spreading over the tops of trees overgrown with forested slopes and evening gusts ... Othalan in addition to the typical metal music instruments a very fine-tuned sound and great guitar solos. They creates a climate on the crankshaft, moraharf, oboe and transverse flute  too - which perfectly grants this stuff. Looking at the whole - "To the ends of the mountains" is a very good ratio between folk metal, folk, fairytale, native and native cultures. Already at the moment it is certainly one of the most interesting albums of widely understood folk, released in Poland in 2017.
Reviewed by Vilcin
Rating: 9/10