Nattfödd

"Nattfödd," the 2004 title track from Finntroll, is folk metal at its most riotously theatrical, fusing the icy ferocity of Scandinavian black metal with the oompah bounce of Finnish humppa polka. Blast beats and tremolo-picked, frost-bitten guitars give way without warning to galloping, accordion-flavored keyboard waltzes, so the song lurches between blizzard menace and drunken tavern stomp. The vocals are a guttural, rasping snarl delivered in Swedish — the band's chosen tongue — narrating their persistent mythology of trolls waging war against Christian invaders and human civilization from the deep forest. The mood is paradoxically grim and gleeful: there's genuine darkness in the atmosphere and lyrics, yet the polka rhythms wink at the listener, refusing total solemnity. "Nattfödd" means "night-born," and the track revels in that nocturnal, pagan wildness. Culturally Finntroll sit at the heart of the early-2000s Nordic folk-metal boom, prizing a distinctly humorous, beer-hall energy that sets them apart from their dead-serious black-metal peers. The result is music made for headbanging and stomping in equal measure — a festival pit at midnight, a circle of leather-clad bodies bouncing to what is essentially a polka played at warp speed. Few bands make something this heavy feel this much like a deranged woodland feast.