How can you not have a floppy drive!?
Queer as Folk
1. Mägo De Oz - Intro: Irish Pub (2:58)
2. Skyclad - Spinning Jenny (2:43)
3. Bathory - The Sword (4:07)
4. Cruachan - Ride On [feat. Shane MacGohan] (4:38)
5. Subway to Sally - Böses Erwachen (Eng: Evil Awaketh) (3:48)
6. Blackmore's Night - Hanging Tree (3:46)
7. Finntroll - Slaget vid Blodsälv (Eng: The Battle of Blood River) (3:16)
8. Borknagar - The Genuine Pulse (4:51)
9. Wuthering Heights - Bad Hobbits Die Hard (3:22)
10. Inkubus Sukkubus - Song to Pan (’94) (3:02)
11. Lothlorien - A Stor Mo Chroi (Eng: The Star of my Heart) (5:10)
12. Agalloch - Kneel To The Cross (5:54)
13. Waylander - Born To The Fight (3:02)
14. Ensiferum - Lai Lai Hei (7:15)
15. Ewigkeit - Strange Volk [Edit] (3:52)
16. Isengard - Vinterskugge (Eng: Wintershadow) (5:15)
17. Of The Wand And The Moon – Here’s to Misery (A Toast) (3:42)
18. Korpiklaani - Man Can Go Even Through the Grey Stone (2:22)
19. The Lord Weird Slough Feg - Sky Chariots (4:49)
20. Orthaugr - Der Weinende Hadnur (Eng: The Weeping Hadnur) (0:52)
LINER NOTES AND EXPLANATIONS:1: This tremendous track is the opener on Mägo De Oz’s ‘Belfast’ album. A great little mood setter.
2: A great little ditty from the true inventors of folk metal, the ever-mighty Skyclad. This song has everything that makes them great rolled into a short space of time: great, lively guitar lines, rocking violin solo, and brilliant, playful lyrics delivered in quick, machine-gun staccato to cram them all in. Some amazing lines “She will exorcise your demons, then exercise your thighs!”.
3: The Sword is one of those songs that pretty much sums up the concept of ‘Viking’ in music. Not so much blatant folk here, but the mood is undoubtedly correct, and there was no way I could leave Bathory off with most of my other Viking, Celtic and Anglo-Saxon faves being on here. Sheer majesty. Interestingly, apart from the drums it’s all one guy, mostly recorded in places like garages and bathrooms, and mixed on equipment from the sixties. Amazing. The opening with the anvil strikes always makes me want to swing my arm around in a hammer striking motion.
4: Cruachan AND Shane MacGohan of the Pogues? Too good to be true. A sweeping, romantic track that always gives me tremendous images of the bleak, rugged landscape of Ireland itself. The Pogues I left off as most people have heard them, and I wanted to cram as much new stuff as possible on here, but Shane still gets a look in, because he’s bloody awesome.
5: Over to Deutschland, where they like their folk with extra industrial GRRR. This is definitely one of Subway to Sally’s most subdued and folky tracks, off their live ‘Schrei!’ CD, which is a great introduction to them.
6: Seriously, this band could not have gone wrong. The Blackmore is, after all, Ritchie Blackmore, of Deep Purple. The man who wrote the riff to Smoke on the Water. So, let’s just say, he can play a bit of guitar. On top of this Candia Night has a voice that isn’t much equalled. The tambourine guy is pretty hot shit too

7: This CD has not yet had enough fucking crazy Finnish people jumping around dressed like trolls. Soon remedied. Final proof that evil is way more fun than good. Particularly at around 1:20.
8: Now, after that raucous affair, a bit of considered, avant-garde post-black. The raw emotional burn of black metal with some seriously nice, inventive music. You cannot have enough people letting out that full, black metal death-rattle that starts this song. Unfortunately I think it’s the only one on the CD, and it’s a bit cut-off.
9: Right, that’s enough ‘depth’. Now time for Wuthering Heights to burn their fingers off in this blistering instrumental that sounds like a couple of folk dances mugging a Rhapsody solo in a dark alley.
10: To me, this song simply encapsulates the idea of paganism: lithe, sensual, uncowed and full of life. This is great life affirming stuff, proper ‘worship music’.
11: If you’re going to have one track from the odd, reconstructed genre people refer to as ‘Celtic Music’, then it’s going to have to be a Lothlorien track. Just listen to the aching, clean, pure notes of those pipes…wonderful. This is the closest track here to the separate universe of awesome that is actual folk music, though no-one ever actually listened to music like this ‘in ye olde days’…it was made up by hippies in the eighties.
12: This is the song I long to sing at every street preacher, door to door salvation salesman and all their ilk, but am really too polite to. It’s actually a cover of Sol Invictus, who didn’t make it on this mix, Agalloch’s wonderful dual vocals and perfect grasp of atmosphere do this song true justice. I find this song very stirring, but, well, if you happen to be Christian…it might not be your cup of tea. “They tried to conquer the Sun, with a Christian frost, the Corpses stench, beneath the cross”
13: Now let’s get out of a dirge-like mood with this reeling assault from Waylander. Bloody brilliant Celtic battle metal. Makes me want to Ceilidh like a motherfucker. If that’s possible.
14: This track is brilliantly medieval. I enjoy the shifts into soul-lifting power metal in particular, not to mention that great intro.
15: Always wonderfully eclectic, this thrashing, electronic and prog influenced folk-riffed monster is just one of the insanely brilliant gems from Ewigkeit’s ‘Radio Ixtlan’, hands down one of my favourite CD’s ever. Unfortunately, the Edited mix leaves off the cool glitched up ending with the Hitch-hikers sampling, but it’s a space issue. I recommend you track it down, and indeed the whole album, if you liked this however.
16: Now for a good bit of eerie, hypnotic folk-black. Isengard is a side-project of Darkthrone’s Fenriz, a past-master at minimalist music, and he brings that great, subdued, buzzing lo-fi creepiness to this track that just makes it, in my opinion.
17: Glumness AND snazzy acoustic guitar work? It’s like Christmas! Nice vocals too.
18: It’s time for more crazy Finns. Korpiklaani are crazed, thrashing party music: so easy to sing along to. “A mens gotta do what mens gotta do, mens gotta do…what mens gotta do!”
19: Now time for a bit more awesome Viking before we close. Slough Feg have a nice, idiosyncratic touch, especially the odd rhyming schemes and rhythms of the vocals, and they prove that it’s quite possible to pull this type of stuff off with the standard array of Metal instruments.
20: Varg Vikernes has a gift for startling, simple yet haunting compositions. Orthaugr’s wonderful, sobbing violin rendition of ‘Der Weinende Hadnur’ makes the perfect bookend to this CD.