We haven't been able to take payment
You must update your payment details via My Account or by clicking update payment details to keep your subscription.
Update payment details
Act now to keep your subscription
We've tried to contact you several times as we haven't been able to take payment. You must update your payment details via My Account or by clicking update payment details to keep your subscription.
Update payment details
Your subscription is due to terminate
We've tried to contact you several times as we haven't been able to take payment. You must update your payment details via My Account, otherwise your subscription will terminate.
Update payment details

Accessibility Links

Skip to content
The Times & The Sunday Times
The Times & The Sunday Times
  • Subscribe
Subscribe

Varttina

The Times
The Times

Miero

(Real World)

The big news from the camp of veteran Finnish folksters is that they have just co-written the score for the stage adaptation of Lord of the Rings, which hits the West End in 2007. They are due to record the soundtrack album this summer, and it seems certain to catapult them from the fringes of world music to the commercial mainstream.

The commission has emboldened them to make by far their most experimental album. The tone is set by the opener, Anathema, which fuses storming global beats with wild fiddles and accordions while conveying genuine menace as the band’s trio of vocalists, Susan Aho, Mari Kaasinen and Johanna Virtanen, warm up for their battle with the Orcs by chanting such lines as “my loathing drips blood, my pain slashes, curses, drenches with pus”.

This record should come with a “parental advisory” sticker, for the venom — musically and lyrically — scarcely lets up throughout. Folk music as cultural terrorism, anyone?

Advertisement

NIGEL WILLIAMSON