Korpiklaani’s New Video is Disappointingly Grim

I’m not going to lie: I like Korpiklaani for the silly reasons. Their jaunty songs about getting wasted and traveling through the woods with horned pagan gods are what raise that band in my esteem. Other folk/pagan metal bands play more dynamic roles in my mind, but Korpiklaani have their place, and it’s at the bar.

So as much as I respect the band for doing their own the video for “Ämmänhauta” from this year’s Noita, I just can’t fully get into it. And maybe that’s why it’s cool — the video is a grim forest story of stone-faced Vikings taking a witch to her death (the title translates into “The Witch’s Tomb”) — but it’s certainly not the kind of Korpiklaani track, or video, that I really crave. It’s very slow, very careful, and I’m much more driven by the band’s reckless sense of old-world excess.

But make up your minds for yourself. Watch “Ämmänhauta” below. Noita is out now on Nuclear Blast.