Turisas

Live at Club Nokia

Downtown Los Angeles, CA

February 8th, 2011

Review and photos by Travis Baumann

Turisas was one of the opening acts for The Creatures from the Black Abyss tour featuring Cradle of Filth as the headlining act. I have seen Turisas before as one of the premiere bands of the Paganfest here in Los Angeles and they put on an amazing show.

They hail from Scandinavia and their music and stage show are dedicated to the Viking lore of their ancestors. I was surprised to see them on tour with Black Metal legends Cradle of Filth because of the difference in atmosphere and styles of the music. While Cradle delve heavily into darkness, Tursias have a hugely festive drinking mentality that also emphasizes battle and warrior trade but always in light of the festivities that will come after the battle.

The other two supporting acts were unknown to me and while both good at what they do, Turisas was definitely a stand out performance of the night. The band consists of its leader, the mighty Warlord Nygard and then features the metal trappings of a guitar, bass and drums. They add to that a beautiful woman playing accordion and an energetic fellow on fiddle and these two bring the more medieval notes to the band and also give them the lively energy that sets them apart.

Being an opening act, they unfortunately had a very short amount of time to perform and only had five songs to present this evening. They opened the set with the epic storytelling adventure known as "To Holmgard and Beyond" which is one of my favorite songs of any of the Viking Metal genre's outputting. I was immediately caught up in their energetic mood and their furs and armor and leather along with the awesome face paint they all wore transported me to the realm of Turisas.

They followed this song with another of my all time favorites, "One More". This song is a drinking song in its finest as not only is it a great excuse to lift another pint but it also gives reason and recollection to all those friends and family both present and past on that deserve a drink raised in their honor.

Nygard explained how the next song was a brand new one and the title of their upcoming release, "Stand Up and Fight!" This song was really awesome and I cannot wait for the album to come out next month. It definitely has all the markings of the Turisas sound with the raw energy of their first release and all the refinement of years of their development as well. A truly excellent song and great in a live environment.

Nygard took a few moments to address the crowd and commented on how awful commercial beer was in America. He acknowledged that we do have awesome beer, especially here in Southern California but they hide it from us and hence we have all turned to "weed".

He laughed as puffs of the aforementioned aromaticly rolled across the crowd and they broke into Jarislev which is a hilarious drinking song dominated by the fiddle and the accordion and I am not too sure whether there are any real lyrics or not. As the song progresses, Nygard gets "drunker and drunker" in his delivery until he is literally laying on the ground while the accordion and fiddle dance around him in intoxicating spirals.

Nygard stood back up and said before they go backstage to their "beloved beer and mushrooms", they had one more song for us this night. They played their title track off of their debut album, "Battle Metal" which had me singing along with my fist in the air as the telltale chorus chant of the song's name rang out. All in all it was an awesome show, a great time had by everyone, and way too short of a set for these talented Viking musicians.

I really wish they could have played twice as long and I can't wait for them to return, hopefully in a headlining slot to assure us a greater taste of the new album as well as more of all of our favorites that they did not have time to perform this night. I enjoyed the entire show and thought Cradle was awesome as well, and Dani made sure everyone cheered doubly for Turisas as he made his own cheers for them during their set.

In my opinion, these guys are the best of the entire Viking Metal scene due to their atmosphere, costumes and presence as well as for their music. It has a hard edge to it but it does not dominate every song like it can for other bands in the genre and they have a great charismatic front man that really is fun to watch and has a unique voice in what can become a cliched genre. When the entire band joins in singing, it has a powerful effect and takes you back to an era of battles followed by beer.

Stand Up And Fight!

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