Ostara — Paradise Down South
Ostara is an appetizing blend of traditional folk and neo-folk. Yet it all is guided by the past, there is an overwhelming influence of the troubadour and minstrel in the songs style. The vocals are absolutely harmonious, even if Leviathan decided not to have any musical accompaniment and chose to find success with his vocals alone he would be quite victorious.
Rather than being dour and melancholy the songs here are vivaciously uplifting. Could it be happy neo-folk? Well yes if the shoe fits that could be the case. To be blunt things do get a bit monotonous, those clear vocals all that hope! All those decidedly frank and straightforward lyrics! We get reprieve by “”Black Hole of Light”, where things take a bit of a darker turn thankfully. It’s as suddenly the sunshine starts to wane and the dark clouds gather. Things get ethereal, dear reader, things get dynamic! Well at least for the next few songs (“Wreath Made Hollow”, “Dark Romance” and “Lone Wolf Cry”), the atmosphere is thick with gothic images of dark dreams, fallen martyrs and wounds of the heart.
It finishes with the traditional song “Havamal”. The old Norse folk song is a welcome change and decidedly different from the other songs. Vocals are craggy but clear, there’s a very windswept, ancient feeling to this. It’s beautifully covered, although at first I thought it sounded a lot like the fake track on Burzum’s Anthology bootleg (Falkenbach also covered it too) it sounds an awful lot like Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson vocals....but I'm not sure