Finntroll (FI)

About

Also known as: Finntrol, Fintroll

Finntroll built their entire identity around a collision of sounds that few people thought would work: Finnish folk music, specifically the uptempo dance style called humppa, fused with black metal. The result is something genuinely strange and genuinely fun, trolls battling Christian priests through riff heavy songs sung almost entirely in Swedish. The Swedish lyrics were the choice of founding vocalist Katla, a member of Finland's Swedish speaking minority, and the tradition stuck even as the lineup changed over the years. Their seven studio albums trace a band that kept pushing the formula without abandoning it. Nattfödd and Ur jordens djup leaned into epic keyboard arrangements, while Blodsvept and the 2020 album Vredesvävd showed they were far from done. Recurring characters like the hapless priests Aamund and Kettil give the records a dark, comic mythology all their own. The 2014 live album Natten med de Levande Finntroll also gave fans a solid document of how wild this stuff sounds in a live setting.