The folk and the beasts! Ladies and gentlemen: Finntroll. The Finnish folk-metal band, the only one that easy found the way to melt in one the folk arrangement with an hardcore-metal full of melo-prog attitude in swedish language. In 1997, completely high in a Finnish recording studio, Teemu Somnium Raimoranta, guitarist of Impaled Nazarene, and Jan Katla Jamsen started to play some strange kind of mix between classic black metal and a bit of Humppa folk; that weird experiment gave birth to the sound and the name of Finntroll and the first demo of the band, Rivfader. With the support of Samuli “Skrymer” Ponsimaa (guitar), Sami “Tundra” Uusitalo (bass), Samo “Beast Dominator” Routsalainen (Drum), Henry “Trollhorn” Sorvali (studio-session keyboards), they released the first LP, Midnattens Widunder in 1999. The success behind the corner arrives with the next Jaktens Tid, in 2001, and the acoustic EP project Visor Om Slutet, a real and right omen for some changes in the band’s line-up due to the illness of Jan Katla (who left the place to Tapio Wilska that already appears in the vocal tracks of the edit) and the death of Raimoranta. Year 2007 gave birth to the last but one work of the band, Ur Jordens Djup. After the two “alternative” productions of Trollhammaren and Nattfodd, the cd is the way to get the rapprochement to the classic sounds of Finntroll, by the usual mix of black metal and folk with the fast rhythms of hardcore. Nifelvind, the seventh work, came out this year. Now the band is going to be on stage again for a short Finnish tour in September, before the North American one from January to March 2011, with 30 dates all over the USA, from Atlanta to Dallas, passing through Chicago, Seattle, Louisville, Los Angeles, San Francisco and many more, with Ensiferum, Barren Earth and Rotten Sound. In the same way of the traditions of folk, the name of the good metal takes the way across the nations and the genres in order to show how it’s possible to melt it in something new. Finntroll, in thirteen years, wrote the little best page of folk-metal with quality and power, from Finland to the world!