If it comes to Pagan Metal it’s currently more than difficult to avoid the term sellout and see every release as objective as possible. It has started years ago with bands like FINNTROLL and a completely new direction with a lot of interesting influences was born. But as usual the new ideas had become the first victims and in 2008 nearly all bands started to sound as similar as possible. HEOROT is another Finnish band and I was not too enthusiastic about a further debut from a band from the 10.000 seas (maybe the poor cover was the major reason). But the band luckily is trying to find its own way and further influences from their Swedish brothers TYHRFING could be found. The 8 songs are an interesting mixture of Metal with Folk parts and not the other way around. It’s a shame that the band is not offering an English translation for their Finnish lyrics because a whole world is not available to the interested listener. HEOROT had released two demos before they recorded “Ragnarök” and you can hear that the band is keen to vary their basis ideas just to avoid the Pagan Metal overkill. “Ragnarök” is for sure not offering 8 masterpieces but ‘Ristiretki’ or ‘Kansaansa Vastaan’ are great songs which make this album more than just an average release. So if you miss the good old times and you are a fan of old TYHRFING (Hammerheart Records era) you can buy this album blindly – all others should give HEOROT at least a chance. www.heorotband.com