For me, folk metal makes perfect music to dance during the concerts to but I rarely listen to it under different circumstances. The Ukrainian Sventoyar is an exception here, perhaps because on the new album "E T H N I X" they sound sometimes more like folk post-metal that makes me all excited.
As you'd expect from folk metal, Sventoyar uses a lot of folk instruments (like Belorussian cymbals and Ukrainian domra) and the whole folk lore (check out how well the musicians look in pictures!). What's interesting is that together with traditionally blonde Slavic vocalist, there's also male deep, almost throat vocal too. Fits the heavy music perfectly.
And it is based on heavy guitars well cooperating with energetic vocals and delicate sound of cymbals. Sometimes the guitarist doesn't resist temptation and goes with a rock riff ("Goatsbusters") but usually it is more about creating huge backgrounds. As for me, I'm mostly excited about the songs where they are accompanied by mesmerizing vocals driving the audience into musical trance (as in "Zhnika" or "Utitsa").
"E T H N I X" costs 9 USD.
