Mithotyn (Classic viking folk metal)
Windir (AMAZING folk inspired black metal band, very somber and haunting - best on the list by FAR!)
Wolfchant (great pagan metal)
Manegarm (good viking metal - very fast and aggressive and black metal based)
Falkenbach (epic viking metal - like bathory plus flutes)
Moonsorrow (epic fucking band - 15-18 minute long pagan metal epics!)
Wuthering Heights (amazing folk/power/prog metal band!)
Mistur (sick black metal band founded by an ex-windir member)
Finsterforst (sick epic progressive folk metal)
Thyrfing (best viking metal band ever)
Valtiari (awesome underground melodeth 1 man band from Australia)
Be'lakor (sick progressive melodeth band from Australia too)
Ulcerate (brutal technical death metal band from new Zealand)
Obsidian Tongue (cool atmospheric black metal from my own state)
Summoning (sick atmospheric black metal - second best band I found by far)
Myrkgrav (cool blackened folk metal 1 man band from norway - very good music)
Menhir (german pagan metal with folk elements and amazing opera like vocals)
Gernotshagen (epic folk/pagan metal - similar to Be'lakor meets ensiferum)
XIV Dark Centuries (excellent folk metal)
Black Messiah (amazing viking metal from germany, really cool and haunting sounding)
Thrudvangar (germanies amon amarth!)
Forefather (sick pagan metal from England! Really good band)
It all started with me googling info on Amorphis. I just got into them and thought they were ok. I was into Folk Metal like Ensiferum, Wintersun, etc at the time. That's all I listened to. I had all the Ensiferum Cd's and listened to them to death. I planned massive virtual tours of places around the world and ensiferum was always the band I chose to listen to while touring North America (esp Canada!), Europe, south america and Australia. My google search on Amorphis lead me to a site. I was lucky to find it. It was a metal forum post asking a simple question... "What is the most influentual, underrated folk/viking metal band?". Some band named Windir won it. Now a long time ago I heard Windir on Internet radio and liked them but soon forgot about them all together. So I started to purchase albums in a purchasing frenzy that would last an entire month. The forum recommended Mithotyn. So I bought their king of the distant forest cd. Right away I knew I would love them. They were heavy and had insanely brutal growling that I loved. But then I listened to windir for the first time a short while later and it blew Mithotyn to shreds.
Describing Windir is tricky. The band sounded a lot like black metal but had really cool folk, industrial and atmospheric touches. Within a few listens they had far surpassed mithotyn and were endangering Ensiferum's place as my second favorite metal band ever. the guitar solos on the song Martyrium are insane. Then there is Fagning. Then I listened to 1184 and was blown out of the water by that. I thought Likferd was good. This was even better. The same thing happened when I finally bought Arntor online. That made 1184 look bad. By Far the most atmospheric band I have ever heard and Nothing comes close. Windir is very underrated. People trash it as crappy black metal. But it's not, It's amazing sounding and nothing comes close to it. Of all the bands I got into this was the best.
By a mile. Windir got me into far darker kinds of folk inspired metal. It got me away from crap like Korpiklaani and fintroll and made me like stuff like Thyrfing, Menhir, and much more.
Pretty soon I was on spotify and getting into other great Atmospheric folk inspired metal bands, such as Moonsorrow, Falkenbach,Wuthering Heights, Mistur, Finsterforst, Thyrfing, Myrkgrav, Menhir, Black Messiah, Gernotshagen, and Forefather. All of these single handily blew Ensiferum out of the water to the point where it was no longer even good in my mind anymore. It had been replaced by tons of non-cheezy Epic Folk inspired bands that actually had some really haunting melodies to them.
All of the bands I listed above are great. They are all worth listening to. Some of them however are insanely good. One band that captivated me all month was Summoning. This was not a folk inspired band but a really good black metal band that did atmospheric non folk inspired metal. Their latest cd is a masterpiece. I loved the sound on it. It was black metal + middle ages music. Their style is amazing. It's only a 2 man band with 2 guys doing keyboards, and playing another instrument too...
Overall I had a blast getting into awesome new music this year...
