Welkins Boreal – Ashes

Welkins Boreal “Ashes” is an album that proves that qualitity and quantity rarely walk hand in hand. Or, the more songs the better the album will be. It is not true in any way. There are only three songs in it and they are all different in mood, cadence, influences, and in a minor scale in tempo. By the way, the songs are in average of almost four minutes.

In this EP “Ashes” Welkins Boreal explore many sonancies in Metal, and I have to say in the so-called Old School Heavy Metal with some touches of gothic. I say touches because I wasn’t able to identify large doses of gothic in it, but as the EPK says that the band plays Gothic Metal, who am I to disagree? In fact, those touches are better explained as influences of Old School Metal bands as Ozzy’s solo career, Accept, Manowar or even WASP. This gets real clear on second track “Triumph of Steel” which steps down a little in tempo and adds some melancholic and epic elements. It is a more introspective track. Vocalist Teemu Kautonen’s voice gives the songs a very personal and particular feeling as he sometimes talks more than sings as in the title track “Ashes.” This is a peculiar, in my opinion, technique that gives the song some passion as it emphasizes the sound of the words. Its choruses are also remarkable giving the epic feeling the band wanted to.

“Ashes” has some interesting facts that may explain the diversity among the tracks. Its material was written in 2001 and they are the first songs band leader Teemu Kautonen wrote. In general, not a rule, of course, a band’s first written songs are in some kind of stilistic limbo as it hasn’t been already consolidated. The other fact is that Welkins Boreal decided to record “Ashes” in the old-fashioned way in a magnetic tape instead of digital. Also, the band claims not to have used autotune nor samples and stuff. The outcome is a more visceral and organic music not the plastic and perfect things some are used to. Well, to be really fair, this decision is up to taste. Some like thie music perfect, some allow some small mistakes, and there goes humankind and their choices.

Welkins Boreal “Ashes” was independently released on September 11th.

Track Listing:

  1. Are You A Witch?
  2. Triumph Of Steel
  3. Ashes

Watch “Are You a Witch?” official video here:

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