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This was a big surprise. Someone mentioned this band here on the board as a good viking metal band, so I figured since I am a big fan of that genre why not check them out? Well I sure am glad I did as Equilibrium is an extremely talented and new band; look out, they will kick your ass. Turis Fratyr is the first release from these German metalheads, and it is about as flawless as a debut can be. The production of this album is outstanding, and it is nice and long clocking in at over 58 minutes.

As of right now I believe there is only 3 band members (Helge Stang-Vocals, Rene Berthiaume-Guitar, Andreas Voelkl-Guitar and Sandra Völkl-Bass.) They are without a drummer; I'm not sure why, maybe if I could read German I would be able to read why off their site. The music as well as the lyrics focus on viking influences, and there is a little bit of folk mixed in as well. The vocals are harsh, for the most part sounding like black metal, and there are really no clean vocals at all which usually I would complain about. They use a lot of flutes and all those other cool sounding instruments folk/viking metal bands tend to use.

I don't want to do a track by track analysis because that would take way too long. I think every song is good, and my favorite is Widars Hallen (I love the outro to the song which starts at 7:05; it reminds me of something you would hear on Lord Of The Rings!)

I don't really have any complaints about this album, it is a very good release, and what a way to start of a metal career for Equilibrium, I just hope they keep this up because I rank this album up with some of the top viking metal albums of all time (Ensiferum-Iron, Falkenbach-Ok Nefna Tysvar Ty, Moonsorrow-Suden Uni, Týr-Eric The Red, and Einherjer-Blot, just to name a few). I sure as hell anticipate this band's next work as this album has not left my stereo since I got it!

Highly recommended to anyone who is fan of viking, folk or even black metal.