Paara – Laulut tulen ja jään
Release Date: 30th October 2026
Label: Dusktone
Bandcamp
Genre: Black Metal, Folk Metal, Folk.
FFO: Moonsorrow, Falkenbach, Havukruunu.
Review By: Aeons Burning
Riitti, Paara’s second album, absolutely blew me away when I first heard it in 2018. I was in college and really delving much deeper into extreme metal as a whole, and Suon sydän was a top Song of the Year candidate for me back then. Naturally I fell in love with Paara, and they quickly became one of my favorite black metal bands. However, it’s been eight years, and just when I thought Riitti would be their swansong, Paara have come back with their third album, Laulut tulen ja jään, releasing this Friday, October 30. Unbelievably hyped, I snatched this up from the promo bin and was really hoping this would be more of the sound that captivated me in the first place. Laulut tulen ja jään is certainly Paara’s most ambitious album to date, seriously blending together a meld of black metal, folk metal, and folk music, but is it even in the same ballpark as Riitti? Is there another Suon sydän moment that really shows how well these guys can write ridiculously catchy songs?
It’s plain to see that Paara have spent the last eight years hard at work in the kitchen, because Laulut tulen ja jään is above all else a very ambitious record that seeks to show how they can meld different genres together, rather than purely writing very good longform black metal with folky elements. Avid listeners of the more epic strain of black metal that tends to include folk elements may notice hints of Moonsorrow, Havukruunu, and even Falkenbach in the works displayed here. Paara have also elected to go for the “swords out true epic” approach here as well, as each proper song has a rousing, triumphant sound that makes you want to draw your sword and march into battle. Unfortunately, this is where the positives end because while I wanted Laulut tulen ja jään to be a masterful successor to Riitti, all the ambition has landed flat on its face. This is a nine-track album, and of those nine songs, five of them are an intro, an outro, and three interludes. That’s ridiculous. They’re well done, sure, but any hope of pacing is completely derailed throughout Laulut tulen ja jään. The proper songs themselves also tend to be long in the tooth, which is a real shame because while Paara in the past have excelled at writing more long-form songs, these just sometimes feel like slogfests rather than keeping their epic nature front and center. In short, I’m quite disappointed.
I can’t lie, this one hurt a bit to write. Paara had such a strong sophomore record only to bite off more than they could chew on the third release after such a long time, and it clearly suffers as a result. Each proper song on here really ends up feeling like watered-down Moonsorrow in a “we have Moonsorrow at home” way, and as someone who really enjoyed Riitti, Laulut tulen ja jään just leaves me with a bitter taste of disappointment. Perhaps on the next attempt they’ll regain the magic they once had, but my hopes for Paara to deliver something special again are rather low, I’m afraid.
(2 / 5)
