Release Date August 20th, 2026
Format CD/Digital
Genre Progressive/Folk/Black Metal
Origin Finland
Jotungrav is the Finnish band of singer and songwriter Matias Stenman. It started in 2015, though most of those early songs ended up in the bin. The band took shape in the summer of 2022 with the single "Drängen", made with Sargassus bandmates Matias Rokio on percussion arrangements and Teemu Leskinen on mixing and mastering, and a second single, "Ulven", followed. The music grows out of the viking and pagan metal of the 2000s and 2010s and out of old mythology. It fuses black and folk metal inside long progressive structures, and the lyrics are philosophical and symbolic, centred on humanity. Over the years the black metal side has shrunk as the sound drifted towards progressive, melodic folk metal, and "Elegi", the debut album, is where that shift sticks.
"Elegi" run four tracks across forty minutes. Stenman handles vocals, guitars, bass, melodica, banjo, harmonica and orchestrations, Rokio sits behind the kit, and Leskinen takes the mix, the master and the guitar solo that tears through "Segern". The sound is warm and organic, the guitars, the orchestrations swell behind the drums, and Rokio's playing through the odd meters holds the whole album together. "Återfödd" strips out the black metal completely for melodic death metal leads and a Finnish waltz swing made for stomping boots and raised horns, and the jump from "Vansinnesvisdom" lands abruptly on first contact.
The lyrics move through the unbroken human spirit, grief that marks the ones left behind and war across the ancient world. The title track ties it all up over nearly fourteen minutes of rising orchestration and mournful melody. The four tracks share recurring melodic lines, and the running order climbs steadily towards that final lament. This is a debut soaked in the pagan folk metal of twenty years ago, reshaped with progressive ambition and played with guts.
|8.0
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