BeatRoute Magazine BC Edition January 2019

ENSIFERUM
FOLK METALLERS WANT TO HAVE FUN BEFORE THEY DIE
ANA KRUNIC
SILVERSTEIN
CELEBRATING 15 YEARS OF WHEN BROKEN IS EASILY FIXED
SLONE FOX
A staple in Canadian post-hardcore for 18 years
running, Silverstein doesn’t pick favourites when
it comes to their growth as a band. Revisiting their
roots and heading back to the basics, the band has
embarked on a unique journey in honour of the 15th
anniversary of their first record, When Broken Is Easily
Fixed, accompanied by Hawthorne Heights, As Cities
Burn and Capstan, playing the album from start to
finish and following it up with their greatest hits.
“We’ve put out, like, eight albums,” says vocalist
Shane Told. “Having a favourite song at this point is
like having a favourite child, but let’s say you have
over a hundred kids. A lot of people are excited
because at this point in our career, they just never
thought they’d get to see those songs live. A lot of
them have so much meaning to people because
they’ve grown with them for years.”
While most fan bases have an innate fear of
bands drifting away from their initial sound, this has
proven to be a non-issue for Silverstein. Staying true
to their original style, Silverstein has progressed and
snowballed into a band that has now toured the
world, sold over one million albums, and has yet to
even reach their full potential, according to Told.
“We feel like we’re just getting started,” he says.
“We’re not one of those bands that went away –
we’ve been here the whole time. Since we got signed
in 2002, all we’ve done is work. Whether we’ve been
on the road or writing and recording, we’ve really
been taking no breaks. We’ve gone back and forth
from one to the other for 18 years. When this tour is
done, we’re going to go back home and book some
studio time and start writing some songs. Hopefully
we’ll have a record out pretty soon.”
Silverstein is notorious for putting out albums like
clockwork, with a new one released every two years
on the odd numbered years, but fans shouldn’t get
their hopes up for 2019. While it’s not impossible,
2020 is much more likely according to the quintet,
who are content continuing to play what they’ve
already created in the meantime.
“Bringing back the stuff we’ve done is just
celebrating. Nothing is taking away from the music
we’re making now,” says Told. “Obviously it’s always
important to promote our current stuff, and a lot of
bands, to be frank, they suck worse and worse and
worse as they get older. Their records get less inspired.
In some cases, it gets a little embarrassing, and we
take a lot of pride in that we always push ourselves
every record and our music has only gotten better.”
With 18 years behind them and countless more
on the horizon, call it karma that Silverstein has been
able to blossom into the beautiful, hardcore flower
they are today.
Silverstein plays January 25 at the Rickshaw Theatre.
Ensiferum are so metal that even their acoustic shows inspire mosh pits.
Photo by Wyatt Clough
There are few live acts in metal today that
are as unironically fun as Finland’s Ensiferum.
Their particular folky/power metal branch on
the genre tree is pretty much the antithesis
of doom. Beaming faces and accordions are
not what you’d expect to see on stage. When
you write what sounds like drinking songs
for mild-mannered Vikings, it’s easy for your
shows to get pretty rowdy, which was even
the case on their most recent all-acoustic
tour.
“Even though we’re playing ballads and
stuff, we’ve still got mosh pits and crowd
surfing and all the normal wild things going
on,” says vocalist and bass player Sami Hinkka.
“We’re playing songs we haven’t been able
to play normally, since it’s tough to mix an
acoustic song in the middle of a metal set. So
we decided to just go for the acoustic tour
concept. We just come onstage as ourselves,
sit down and we get to drink a bit more,” he
laughs. “It’s been great for the really hardcore
fans. It’s a chance to see a lot of songs that
we’ve never played outside of Finland.”
Ensiferum as a concept is best
encapsulated in their live show. In an effort to
catch that in studio, their most recent album,
Two Paths, was recorded analog rather than
digital.
“The goal was to have an album that
sounds more like a live album,” says Hinkka.
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“Because Ensiferum is absolutely a live band.
It’s really hard to get into that state of mind
when you’re in the studio. So the whole band
would be playing at the same time when we
would be recording the drums. For example,
on the last album there are two songs where
the drums and bass are from the same take
from beginning to end, and that’s pretty oldschool.
It gives it a whole different groove.”
Because folk metal is such a different
animal from the many less immediately
embraceable metal subgenres, it’s exploded
in popularity in the last 15 years and its
epicenter was almost certainly in Finland.
Ensiferum, along with other Finnish bands
like Finntroll and Korpiklaani, helped to
popularize it in the early 2000s.
“How a lot of us got into metal was
melodic style death metal – that had a really
big impact. So I guess folk metal is easier for
people to approach because it’s got catchy
melodies,” says Hinkka. “While there are so
many serious songs with serious topics, we’ve
got lots of tongue-in-cheek moments. Like,
come on, let’s drink and have fun before we
die!”
Surely not many people would argue with
that.
Ensiferum performs at the Rickshaw Theatre
on January 18.
Their upcoming tour is a love letter to early 2000s teens with support from Hawthorne Heights and As Cities Burn.
January 2019