Thaurorod
Upon Haunted Battlefields

October 2010
Released: 2010, Noise Art Records
Rating: 4.0/5
Reviewer: Luxi Lahtinen

Thaurorod is a Fantasy/Symphonic/Power Metal/whatever-terminology-there-is-these-days band hailing from Hyvinkää, Finland – and the band has just started their “World War Tour” from Sweden together with Sabaton and Alestorm.



Thaurorod? This name has slipped under my radar so far for some strange reason. The name of the band is in Quenya, which is a fictional language spoken by elves in J.R.R. Tolkien's books, meaning "Evil Mountain". The band was formed in 2002, and since then they have released 3 demos with various line-ups.



Thaurorod´s debut album, titled UPON HAUNTED BATTLEFIELDS, however, can be considered quite a huge grand opening from them, just keeping in mind it´s only their debut full-length album. The musicianship is on a strong level and there´s no question that the Power/Symphonic/whatever world will love this band. The band has recruited Markus Kuikka from the progressive metallers Status Minor as their vocalist, and I guess they hardly would have found any better, or a more suitable addition to their line-up. Markus truly shines through every song on the album – delivering his excellent vocal performance in such a convincing way as if he had sung this way through his whole life since he came out from her mother´s womb.



The music is complex, varied and thoroughly very well executed. There are really no weak moments in Thaurorod´s performance on this debut album of theirs; especially whenever Emil Pohlainen lets his 6-stringer sing, one starts wondering at the guy´s amazing skills to command his instrument in sheer amazement. The band´s other guitarist Lasse Nyman wasn´t born yesterday either; his riffs and rhythmwork are more or less compelling – offering its necessary strong spices in form of heaviness and catchy melodies for the songs. What´s best, each member in Thaurorod seem to find each other very well instrumental-wise, so indeed, they do work like a well-oiled and fast combat vehicle on a battlefield, destroying everything in view.



UPON HAUNTED BATTLEFIELDS should probably sell like hot pancakes due to having so much musical brilliance and technical skills of each band member involved in it. Now having said that, it will be interesting to see how long they will survive in the Metal scene, as they are far from being alone in this oceans-vast particular Metal genre in question. The start looks very promising and optimistic for this Finnish sextet anyway, so let´s see in excitement what the future will hold for them.