Ensiferum

This is the first album by the band from Helsinki. Ensiferum was founded in 1995 by the guitarist Markus Toivonen, the bassist Sauli Savolainen and the drummer Kimmo Miettinen. Jari Maenpaa joined in 1996 as singer and second guitarist, and in 1997 they put out a three-song demo. Savolainen and Miettinen left in 1998 and were replaced by Miettinen's fourteen-year-old brother Jukka-Pekka and by Oliver Fokin. A second demo in January 1999 brought no record deal but did the band's confidence some good; the third, Hero in a Dream, recorded that November, earned them a contract with Spinefarm Records. Tuomas Tahvanainen drew the band's logo for that demo. They went into the studio in 2000 and the album appeared in July 2001, the same year the keyboard player Meiju Enho joined. The demo's title song stands second here, followed by two pieces about Vainamoinen, the hero of the Kalevala. The running order here is the original's as printed.