Falconer-Among Beggars and thieves

Metal Blade
2008



Falconer return for their sixth album "Among beggars and thieves" which has a theme that revolves around misery, poverty and hard times in their home country of Sweden during medieval times. In my book, power metal is one of the sub genres of metal where it's difficult to stand out these days. That's just because so much has already been done and you get some moderately skilled bands who don't really stand out because they just can't or aren't bringing anything new to the table. Falconer do an admirable job of setting themselves apart and they succeed to an extent. They blend in chants, female accompaniments and a few brief passages of renaissance music that help to give it a folk-metal feel. I am not sure those parts add a huge amount to the overall sounds, but they help to pull in your attention and change the pace which does add some texture to the songs. The other aspect that may set Falconer apart is that they seem to have a stronger grasp in how to make use of their classic metal influences. All too often power metal acts soar off on big streaming melodies forgetting about any real "power" or "metal" in the traditional sense. Falconer have a decent knack for knowing when to fly off on a blazing riff yet they also know when to reel it all back in and crunch out some real metal as well. The result is a more balanced sound than many of their peers and it's also what helps keep them as interesting as they are. Now there are still times where Falconer fall into the trap of playing some rather typical power metal and the theatrical vocals can be a bit much at times yet for the majority of the time they really have this album rolling along in their favor.