Cardinals Folly-Strange Conflicts of the Past

Shadow Kingdom Records
2013


Cardinals Folly are a Finnish heavy metal/doom metal band. This is a collection of all of their early, out of print material arranged in one simple package. The band is lead by bassist/vocals Mikko Kääriäinen who, in addition to being the main songwriter/lyricist for Cardinals Folly, is the only remaining original member. Mikko Kääriäinenand is a former member of  Whorrornight (interesting name for a band eh?) and he also plays with black metal band Sathyricorion where, incidentally, he is known as Lord Santhyr. Alongside Mikko is guitarist Juho Kilpelä (who also plays with thrash/death band Intervention) and drummer Sebastian Lindberg. Sebastian Lindberg has played in indie rock band Murmansk and is also a visual artist. Just an FYI. As stated this collection gather's together a ton of material that was out of print. The track listing is as follows:
1. Intro
2. The Right Hand of Doom
3. Rasputin (The Mad Monk)
4. Serpent Nights
5. Opening Ceremony
6. Blood Axis Raider
7. Cardinals Folly
8. They Found Atlantis
9.The Model (Kraftwerk cover)
10. Transmission From the Mad Arab

The first three tracks are from the 2008 "Heretic´s Hangover" EP. This was the first release for the band under the name of Cardinals Folly and is fairly solid heavy/doom metal. Prior to that, 2004-2007 to be exact, the group was known as The Coven. Track number 4 was actually featured on The Coven's 2006 demo, "Beltane", but this is a unreleased, re-recorded version with the Cardinals Folly line-up that was done in 2008. The "new" version of "Serpent Nights" is reportedly longer (I didn't check the details out for myself sorry) then the old one. Either way it's a cool song. The next 4 tracks are from the long out of print 2009 EP, "Orthodox Faces" which was originally well received in the doom community and it's easy enough to see why!. My favorite of the bunch is "Blood Axis Raider". It's a psychedelically-charged doom rocker that is evil spooky. Simply cool. Track number 9 is another unreleased song. "The Model" is Kraftwerk cover and a quite interesting cover at that! It's quite a different take on the song as Cardinals Folly takes this one-time electronic track and gives it a health dunking in Black Sabbath! And then we finish things off with another unreleased track in "Transmission From the Mad Arab". Again, it's some pretty cool doom material even if it is slightly off-kilter and, at under 2 minutes in length, way too short! Thankfully 10 minute plus tracks like "They Found Atlantis" make up for it. All in all this is a nice collection especially if you're looking for something "different" from the regular 9-5 doom. The only down side is that either Mikko Kääriäinen sounds really wicked and sinister ("Serpent Nights"and "Blood Axis Raider") or just "off". The first few tracks actually had me disappointed as I didn't like his singing, but it seems as if maybe he was just having a bad day or something then as I liked him more as the album moved on. The band certainly has their own take on the doom genre and I like that they were not afraid to twist and turn their own material around.