Stand Up and Fight is the third album by the Finnish symphonic / folk metal band Turisas, released on February 23, 2011 through Century Media. The album continues to develop the themes started by The Varangian Way, but it is not actually a sequel. The lyrics, dealing with the 11th century Byzantine Empire have a universal appeal and are applicable to the modern world. Musically, the band claims to have incorporated more progressive elements, as well as influences from such genres as the 1980s stadium rock. For the first time, real string and horn sections were used to record the Read more on Last.fm.
There’s a pseudo-parallel to the idea of musical ‘guilty pleasures’ (being embarrassed to admit the music you enjoy) that’s not self-loathing in disguise; it’s best described as a ‘hesitant pleasure’. Occasionally, you can listen to an album fully intending to find it pretentious or comical and wind up with the unfortunate combination of being both mostly right in your judgment and surprised by how much you enjoyed its execution.
Such is the case with ‘Stand Up and Fight’. Turisas’s ‘Battle Metal’ album was fantastic and unlike much of anything I had ever come across when I heard it in 2005. But, I thought its genre-splitting creativity would only be able to have single-album staying power; besides, only Nile can write historically-themed metal, right?
I would never have imagined an accordion, violin, and even occasional horn section, making an album’s worth of praiseworthy metal, but I’m pleased to admit my assumption was incorrect. This album is driving, yet melodic (and not in an annoying Trivium sort of way), has great songwriting and fantastic musical execution. How ‘Stand Up and Fight’ doesn’t actually come across as ‘cheesy’ is absolutely beyond me; there’s real, authentic heavy metal mixed with interesting some composition and, somehow, these moments of Styx-like interludes. I have no idea. Give it a listen.