The Finish band Battlelore was founded in 1999 by J.Vahvanen and M. Kokkola. Evernight is the forth album of a band that adores Tolkien; according to their internet site Battlelore wants to “show you flashes from the smoky tavern at Umbar, through the green fields of Rohan and finally to the deepest dungeons of Moria”. I’ve seen and I’ve read the trilogy of Tolkien’s masterpiece ‘Lord of the Rings’. It’s rather difficult to discover the link between Evernight and Tolkien’s masterpiece except from the band’s name and the cover of Evernight

The music of Battlelore is a mix of metal and gothic metal with sometimes dark metal influences. The female singer Kaisa Jouhki sounds quite fragile during the first half of the album, the second part her vocals are more convincing, but still too clear in comparison with the metal sound.

The male vocals (by Tomi Mykkänen) are best described as a mixture of real grunts and very raw vocals. Most songs are epic symphonic metal songs. ‘We are the legions‘ is the exception, this song is the shortest track of the album and has quite some dark metal influences. Because of the limited possibilities of Kaisa Jouhki´s vocals and the “almost grunts” of Tomi Mykkänen the album gets a bit boring after a few songs. Instrumentally most songs sound like each other; gothic metal with heavy parts relieved by quiet and symphonic moments.

For the true gothic metal fans and Tolkien fans, first listen the album before you decide to buy it or not.