It may sound strange to you, but in my opinion the bonus song is the best one on the whole album. I'm sorry for those ones who bought only the regular edition without this song and the poster. But does that mean that the rest of the album is a deception? No, it is still an above the average and highly underrated album, though it has not the diversified creativity of "The last supper".

The album starts with an atmospheric organ introduction that leads to the mystic and epic title track "Liberty or death". "Highland tears" goes back to the style of "Tunes of war" and could have perfectly fit on this album. The song is epic and melodic, the pipers fit very well in this song. Another highlight of the album is "Silent revolution", a darker and still quiet epic song. "Massada" is then the best song on the regular edition, it has oriental and Arabic folk influences, mighty choirs and is dramatically structured. The next and very last song is "Ship of hope" with a dark atmosphere when the song begins as a dark ballad. The piano interludes are a welcome change in style but fit perfectly and the chorus is epic and gives me goose bumps every time I am listening to it. The end of the song goes back to its beginning, the perfect circle is drawn.

If we just take those five songs, the album is as creative and diversified as "The last supper", but the best word to describe the sound would have been "epic". The conceptual songs about the fight for freedom in many different ways are all quite long, highly elaborated and diversified. You find many interesting and inspiring influences and the straighter head bangers can't be found that easily. This half of the album is just perfect.

But there are still six other songs on the record. "Ocean of blood" is the straight up-tempo rock song and remembers me a lot of "Rheingold". It is a typical Grave Digger song but nothing we haven't already heard better on some older albums. "The terrible one" begins with dark choirs and creates an eerie atmosphere, but the shredding riffs that come in don't fit at all with the rest and the rest of the song is a typical up-tempo number. The only remarkable thing is the catchy chorus. "Until the last king died" begins with a bass intro and strange guitar sounds and seems to be a very interesting song. The song is very low and begins with strange choirs and deserves you some surprises, but the whole thing seems somehow discordant and too forced to me concerning the changes of style. It is without a doubt a interesting song but somehow a difficult and uneasy song that takes really a lot of time to grow on you, if it grows finally. "March of the innocent" has a very atmospheric introduction with acoustic guitars and starts very well but the whole thing is way too long and the whole song may become a little bit boring. Chimes and acoustic guitar sounds bring an interesting element to the song when the vocals come in, but the chorus is too simple. "Shadowland" begins very calm and simple riffs announce that this song will soon be transformed into a typical mid-tempo banger, a little bit too typical, too boring, too ordinary. Verses and chorus are really boring and I think that this song is by far the weakest one on this album. "Forecourt to hell" is also a mid-tempo banger but a little bit straighter and could have been found on the last album instead of the very similar "Hell to pay". The song is solid, but not great or original.

In conclusion, we have got five very creative and excellent songs and six good and typical average mid-tempo songs that you can like to listen to just to forget them a few seconds after. Once again, the more experimental songs are really interesting and show the band's talent and diversity, but for the rest of the album, they prefer too stick to their roots and please the older fans and that almost destroys the magic and power of the other album half. That's why there is an excellent half and a boring standard half on this album. I think that my rating tries to find the middle between those two styles, seen from a courageous and friendly point of view.

I would recommend this album to you if you have liked the one before and if you could imagine a fusion between the actual style and the band's classical style. And if you buy it, you must get the digipack edition!

After the dark experimental album "The scythe", Elvenking try once again something completely new in their career and present us an acoustic album. But I must admit that this idea is nothing really original anymore, I am already satisfied with all those folk acoustic albums by German bands like In Extremo, Letzte Instanz or Subway to Sally and so on and enough is enough. When this album was announced, my reaction was just: Sorry? Another acoustic album? Are they all doing acoustic albums right now? There album must be strong to justify its presence!

Well, but this album isn't that strong or original. It is not worse than the acoustic albums of the German folk hard rock bands. But it is not better, too. Too many songs are repeating always the same style. The album is smooth and has a harmonic tranquility, but I'm missing more original folk instruments, some experiments, some courage like on the last album. The average fan liked this album because it was not a provocation, a "hate it or like it" as the last one was. This album could please to almost everyone a little bit, but not completely too anyone. It's an album to celebrate a reconciliation with the old fans that have turned their backs on the band after the last album. The album wants to be intellectual and chilling. I think it's a mostly boring album for a typical metal head but I am able to see some positive points in it.

It starts very well though. After a good introduction, "Another awful hobs tale" has the typical dynamical power folk style of the band, only in an acoustic style. The harmonic single "From blood to stone" is a little bit slower and has a catchy chorus, "Not my final song" is a faster, funnier song that makes you smile somehow. There is nothing dark and eerie on this album any more.

The rest of the songs sound all quite similar and are not as particular or catchy as the three ones that I've mentioned. The acoustic reprises of "The winter wake" and "The wanderer" are not as good as the original versions, especially the first one has a lack of originality in comparison to the original version. The cover song "Heaven is a place on earth" is the only non acoustic song and doesn't fit at all with the rest of the album.

Surprisingly, it is my favourite song on the album and has a really romantic and charming atmosphere that is at least as magic as the original version by Belinda Carlisle that I already liked before. I would even prefer Elvenking's catchy and harmonic version to the pop song and it doesn't happen often that I prefer the cover to the original. This song, just because of the instruments, the romantic style and the powerful magic, has not at all the same style as the rest of the album and it is maybe because of this that the song really surprised me and grew on me with the time. It is also an indicator that the rest of the album can't be that great if a cover song is my favourite tune on the album.

I would recommend this album to fans of inspiring acoustic folk music or people who want to have something relaxing, friendly and harmonic as background music while they are painting, writing poems or just relaxing. But if you take the songs one by one, they are not really strong or original and I wouldn't call this a strong album. It is more an album for special occasions and it doesn't happen that I'm very often listening to it and I would probably consider it as the weakest one in the band's discography.

In my review for the album "The winter wake", I wrote that I really liked the experimental style of "Trows kind" and "The winter wake" and that I hoped that the band would head on to focus on such particular songs. When the cover artwork of this album was published, I expected some darker material of this album, but that the band would have done such a radical change of style even surprised me. First, I was just mixed up or stunned, but after a few tries, I really liked the courageous darker and harsher direction of this album. I really like when bands go into such kind of directions like Iron Maiden with "The X Factor", Judas Priest with "Jugulator" or Helloween with "The dark ride", just to give you an idea. Now, Elvenking deliver their own dark side.

The first song starts with spoken word intros and weird and dark background songs. In fact, every song on this album begins with some spoken words by a narrator and this style underlines the conceptual style of the album. It is indeed an album about the ways you could die. I find the main idea quite interesting but I think that the narrator doesn't show enough emotions and sounds rather bored and that's what destroys the good ambitions.

The title track is a very dark and heavy song with a very epic and melodic chorus and one of the catchiest songs on the album. But this song shows already that the band concentrates on death metal and even gore elements on this album and you rarely hear songs that remember you of their old power and folk metal style like "A riddle to the stars" or "Totentanz".

A good example for the new direction of the band would be the dramatically and atmospheric "Infection" with death vocal shrieks and a mixture of dark growls and melodic vocals in a very catchy chorus. The violin is though perfectly integrated in this part and gives a very diversified and particular touch to the song. The atmospheric and doom interlude underlines the song's particularity and creepy atmosphere. Even if you would not like this song, one must admit that this sound is unique and courageous. And personally, I think that the experiment succeeded. This song represents very well the album and it is one of my favourite ones.

The only song that falls a little bit out of the line is the single "The divided heart" which is a more melodic but yet very dark gothic pop ballad with an extremely kitsch but catchy chorus. That sounds horrible, but it isn’t. Normally, this song would be the weak point of such an album, but that isn't the case here. This song is so catchy and addicting that you can't get it out of your mind, especially for the chorus. The band really has a talent to write catchy choruses on this album and this song gets the peak position. The most important thing is that this song even fits on the album because it stays in a darker tone and relates also to the death topic.

The only problem about this album is that some songs in the second half are a little bit too long and seem to repeat and go into the same direction rapidly. The catchiness of first songs has gone and songs like "Romance and wrath", "Death and the suffering" or "Dominhate" mostly sound too ambitious and overlong for nothing.

But a part of those three songs, you can find seven dark and eerie catchy killers on this courageous album. The band just did what they wanted to do on this album and took high risks, but as far as I am concerned, I think that there thing worked on me. The album is different from the solid but repeating power folk stuff they have done before and that many other bands do. This album has mostly no cute and innocent folk melodies, it is dark, eerie and evil and may shock the old and average fans. I think that it is the highlight in the band's discography. But it is good as well that they didn't continue to head into that direction on the later albums, not to please to the weeping closed minded fans that hated this album, but to keep the unique spirit of this one alive.

Elvenking play a mixture of power metal and folk music with some little progressive, thrash or death influences that are not yet that present on this album.

This album was my introduction to the band. The first song of this album, "Trows kind" was the first song I've known from them and when I first listened to it, I thought that this song was too fast, too hectically and too overloaded. But when I listened another few times to this song - that was on a compilation album of the famous German Rock Hard magazine that I had bought - this song extremely grew on me. There are so many changes in style in this song that you could almost call it a progressive one. Choirs, melodic chants, growling, whispering, spoken words and female vocals are present in this song just to mention the vocal diversity of this song. That creates a very unique sound.

The title track "The winter wake" is another experimental song with Schmier from the German Thrash Metal Band Destruction on the vocals. This songs surprises with an electronically influenced introduction before it is based on harsh vocals and bass guitar riffs. The typical power and folk elements of the band are only added a little bit later and this song sounds quite unique.

The other nine songs present mostly very solid ("March of fools") to rather average power folk songs ("Rouse your dream") but sometimes, the band creates too many kitsch lyrics and choruses that are not that much profound and heavy ("Swallowtail"). It is nice to listen to those songs and especially the first half of the album is very catchy, but too many songs go into rather the same direction what is a sad thing, because the two outstanding songs are the most interesting ones and I have waited for more after that.

If the band would have gone in the very original direction of the opener and the title track, this album would have been something revolutionary and extremely interesting. But as final result, I must say that this is a well done average power folk metal album with two very interesting experimental songs.

This album is for a very special and particular public: open-minded progressive rock fans that don't mind if an album has a jazzy sound and world music influences. I consider myself as a very open-minded person and that's why I gave this album several tries.

It is not easy to get an approach to this album even if the musicians are all very talented and trying to impress and surprise you. But if you take your time to give this album a chance, you will discover many details and interesting passages. The songs really grow on you, but when you listen to this stuff first, you will feel mixed up as there are many random sounds and no chorus, no melodies, no vocals that you could keep in mind. There is a great nothing in your head when you listen to this album for the first time and you might think that band really somehow plays whatever it wants like in a jam session.

There are indeed some songs that exaggerate on this point. The so-called intro "Arsis" is a jazzy tuning in of a bass guitar mixed with some moments of silence. "Grace" is announced as a live song but has nothing of a live atmosphere and presents some random structures and strange melodies in over eight minutes that can become really long and boring if you don't play an instrument yourself or could appreciate the employed techniques. The strange "The brook the ocean", my second favourite opus on this album, works surprisingly well with its random sounds and reminds me a little bit of Genesis' "The waiting room" or Pink Floyd's "On the run" with a little bit more moderation.

There are also some more rhythmic and straighter songs like "Muttersprache" and "Some brighter thing" that are easier to appreciate and could almost please to some purist metal heads. My favourite song is though the very diversified and mystic "A Shaman's whisper" that includes many world music elements and interesting sound structures.

I would say that this album is very interesting from a technical and artistically point of view but it lacks of a straight line and decides to present many particular styles instead of only one particular style which adds a certain compilation and jam mood to the album. It is amazing to listen to this album to learn an instrument or to use this album as an ambient record while you are cooking, reading or simply relaxing, but even though there are many different styles presented on this album, I wouldn't call it profound. A little bit less of all would have been more intense and inspiring in my opinion. That's why I consider this album as an interesting experience worth listening to but not as a masterpiece as many people call it.

But at least and without the glimpse of a doubt and to sum this up for you this album is simply: different!