Butterfly Temple: Folk Trends That Are Worthy of a Listen

I am selling some of my CD’s on eBay to help defer the cost of the wedding I am expecting to pay and to clear out some room. In my selling fury, I tend to take a few minutes and relisten to key tracks on CD’s to decide if I really wish to part with them. Now, why the big build-up? It is because of the above that I rediscovered my enjoyment and love of Butterfly Temple.

I like the vocals and frankly the Russian language mixes well with the music. There is a sophisticated use of synths and keyboards against a pound of the drums and thunder of the bass.

Depending on the album, the harsh vocals are underplayed by the folkish sounds of traditional Russian tunes. The best example of the Pagan/Folk metal roots is the Veles album. I found it to be the most accessible of all of their works. I love the female vocals that temper the momentum of the band and add some purpose to the controlled chaos. The Russians can rock. The electric guitars are a bit more subtle in this band and give way to the atmospheric tendencies of the band in creating a tone, and a breadth to the music that flashy guitar solos are more of a disruption. That is not saying guitars are not a major instrument, it’s just that they add to the overall image/goal of the band.


Folk metal is often lumped together with Viking/Norse/Goth/Pagan metal. I often think these mixtures are fair in such bands like FinnTroll, Tyr, and Falkenbach; in Butterfly Temple, they really have no place. Butterfly Temple often uses a harsh death metal-esque voice, but the tunes are quite reminiscent of Eastern European/former Soviet Bloc countries folk tradtions. I have often tried to find translations of the songs, and the band’s musical themes include: Pathways, Halls of Stillness, Hounds, Wolves, and hymns. There is a dark sounding undercurrent of some of this music and there is a part of me that wishes to be more involved lyrically, but I think that would distract me to a degree from enjoying the overall quality of the music. There is something to just listening and not really trying to read the themes. As such, I take the band for what they are musically without any judgements to anything other than the sounds of the music.



I own six of this fine bands releases: On The BloodRed Path..By The Will Of Rod, the Times Of Mara, Veles, Dreams of the Northern Sea, Wheel of Chernobog, and the most recent Za Solntsem Vsled, the latter being available through Amazon and iTunes. Kind of a shame the others are not, as I obtained my from eBay and they occasionally show up there from the IROND label. I encourage folks to check out this band who uses some non-traditional instruments such as bells, Folk female voice—kind of like an instrument the way Butterfly Temple uses it, lofty keyboards, fiddles, whistles, accordions, acoustic guitars, orchestration, against the background of traditional metal sounds of heavy drums, guitars, harsh vocals, and an unrelenting bass. I think the bass is what really drew me back to this band.


In my usual last word: Although I am not sure, but I have a feeling that lyrically, what they are saying is quite fascinating.


They are classified by the Russians as "Pagan Death Metal," which may scare a few folks away. I have found them to be quite soothing at times and honestly would consider them Traditional Folk metal, granted Traditional Folk Metal with a growl. Check out Butterfly Temple on their IROND Label: http://www.irond.ru/indexf.html