‘Third Age of the Sun’ is the third outing for Lord of the Rings obsessed Finns Battlelore. One might assume that a band that is based entirely on the Tolkien created world of Middle Earth might be a rather pallid, floaty light affair – think the Enya stylings of the film soundtracks – instead they are a meaty sounding, guitar heavy band with growled male vocals provided by new vocalist Tomi Mykkänen and more delicate female vocals as counterpoint. Promo shots have the seven strong band kitted out in full costumed glory – as elves, orcs, warriors and wizards – their look and their theme is obviously a fundamental part of the band.

‘Third Age of the Sun’ gets off to a good start, with a short, spoken word passage by female vocalist Kaisa Jouhki, which blasts straight into ‘Storm of the Blades’, a great opening track. This is followed by the best track on the album ‘Ghân of the Woods’, fast paced and guitar heavy, with catchy and memorable opening atmospherics. Unfortunately after this the album is less interesting, which is not promising only three tracks in. It’s only after the ballad, ‘Elves of Lúva’, that it grabs the attention again, with the great tracks ‘Valier - Queens of the Valar’, followed by ‘Thousand Caves’. Other than the ballad there is really no break in pace, with tracks quickly starting to blend into each other.

Celtic style flutes add to the fantasy atmosphere, but fortunately the band have not fallen into the trap of saturating the whole album in an attempt to make it more ‘medieval’. Rather, the flutes just add a touch of a folk feel, leaving the guitars as the driving force of the album.

The new male vocalist sounds much more forced in his grunting style than original vocalist Patrik Mennander, and Kaisa Jouhki’s vocal style is also rather weak and monotone, growing more grating on the ear as the album progresses. Both are listenable, however having two weak vocalists on a rather samey album is definitely a point against them.

The final track consists of ‘Gollum’ in a monologue over a mellow ditty – a bizarre and unnecessary track and a bad way to the end the album. Three bonus tracks are added on the limited edition digipack, all pleasant enough, with only ‘Elessar’s Call’ standing out particularly. By the time the bonus tracks are reached though, they are more of a chore than a bonus.

Overall the album is enjoyable enough, and the good tracks really are good, but ‘Third Age of the Sun’ really doesn’t inspire any excitement or any real desire to revisit it again and again. A decent effort, but far the good tracks are too few and far between and one can’t help but think that it would have worked better perhaps as a ten-track album, rather than stretching it to sixteen including the bonus tracks.

Standout Tracks:  Ghân of the Woods, Valier - Queens of the Valar, Thousand Caves.

Overall Score:   6.5 /10