Æther Realm - One Chosen by the Gods (2013)

Æther Realm are a four-piece melodic death metal band from Greenville, North Carolina. They’re a bunch of young upstarts who have found the recipe to make music that sounds so much like their influences that they have shot past the point of merely paying tribute and landed right next to them.
Their brand of melo-death falls heavily into the realms of bands such as Ensiferum, Kalmah, and Turisas. There’s enough of the pagan sound as promoted by the aforementioned bands, but with a hurdy-gurdy folk influence as well, to make a band located on the east coast of the United States sound like they hail from the colder sections of Europe. They’ve even jokingly had a note on their Facebook page which states, ‘We Are Not From Finland’.
For much of the last year, Æther Realm have been building toward the release of their debut album, One Chosen By The Gods, and that is now set for January 8. One Chosen By The Gods is a nine-song affair, and if you’ve been following this band for a bit (I gave them a small shoutout in my 2011 year end roundup here at NCS, so maybe since then?) then you’re probably already familiar with three of the tracks (“Swampwitch”, “Ravensong”, “Odin Will Provide”). But of course the album delivers much more.
And if you haven’t previously been exposed to Æther Realm, then One Chosen By The Gods will come as one of the lead-off pleasant surprises of 2013.