Release Date: June 26, 2020
Genre: Folk Metal, Power Metal
Label: Metal Blade Records
Swedish folk/power metal quintet has returned with their ninth and final album, From A Dying Ember. The band after twenty years together, announced their sudden disbandment on June 11th, voicing that they created this eleven-track effort with the full intent of making the best possible Falconer album the five of them could possibly deliver after such a storied career. Even adding some instruments to their music, that the band has always wanted to include in their songwriting to achieve an extra medieval and folky vibe to their sound. Falconer’s latest release was once again produced, mixed, and mastered by Andy LaRocque, guitarist of King Diamond. The album was also recorded at LaRocque’s own, Sonic Train Studio.
The opening number on From A Dying Ember is the fast-paced and melodic tune, “Kings and Queens,” setting the tone for the remainder of the effort. Followed by, “Desert Dreams,” the riff-riddled track that’s about facing and/or hiding from the struggles of your own mind. “I rest my weary head as I close my eyes to sleep / Yet the demons once again come around / The more I try to fight / The more I will lose / I am lost in desert dreams / By the vultures to be found.”
“Garnets and a Gilded Rose” is a rich instrumental track, that for the first time in the band’s twenty-year career incorporated the use of both bagpipes and keyed fiddle into their music. Something the band has always wished to do on their music in some form or another over their career but never got to do so until now. Bagpipes are also apparent on the track, “Thrust the Dagger Deep.” Falconer wrote, “Rejoice the Adorned,” which the band describes as the most intense ballad they’ve ever written using only piano, keys, and strings. From A Dying Ember ends with the six-and-a-half-minute piece, “Rapture,” which is a song originally written for guitarist Stefan Weinerhall’s former band, Mithotyn. “Rapture” was rewritten by Weinerhall and his former bandmate Karl Beckmann for use as a Falconer track.
Be sure to preorder, purchase, or stream Falconer’s farewell album as soon as the album drops to hear what the band has been working on for the previous four years before they ride off into the sunset on their own terms.