Arditi / Toroidh – United in blood

In a nice grey digipack and limited to 1000 copies comes this collaboration between Arditi and Toroidh. Both projects are quite well-known in the martial/neo-classical genre. Arditi being a side project of Puissance (which is I believe more popular and/or famous in the black metal scene than it is in the martial/neofolk scene, perhaps because the men involved look(ed) very `true`). Anyway, I can really appreciate Puissance’s music, I also like Europe is dead by Toroidh, and I didn’t know Arditi yet.

So…what immediately struck me are the powerful clean drums in the first track. Maybe a bit too clean and loud, but as the track progresses it turns out to be a good listen. Furthermore, as the albums progresses, lots of (dark) atmosphere, samples, speeches, orchestral strings; bombastic music for sure.

Some tracks remind me a bit of Swedish Sophia, other tracks sound quite like Toroidh’s albums or the older Blutharsch stuff. Track 8 is somewhat of a surprise, with acoustic guitars and thus resembling Toroidh’s own albums and, of course, Ordo R. Equilibrio. After a while this track nicely turns in an old military tune.

Overall I must say I enjoyed this album. The music is not original or something new, but it’s done in a professional way and has a nice dark and oppressing atmosphere. And there are enough old martial samples present to enrich the thick and dark orchestral sound, making it just a bit more varied. People who like the names I mentioned above cannot go wrong with this one!

artist: Toroidh
label: Neuropa Records
details: releasedate: April 2004. digipack, 1000 copies. [NRP13]