Ensiferum

Ensiferum
Sami Hinkka and Petri Lindroos with Ensiferum at Rockharz festival 2016 in Germany
Background information
Origin	Helsinki, Finland
Genres	Folk metal,melodic death metal,power metal, viking metal
Years active	1995–present
Labels	Spinefarm, Metal Blade
Associated acts	Wintersun, Arthemesia, Cadacross, Chthonic, Norther, Waltari, Sinergy, Rapture, Turisas
Website	www.ensiferum.com
Members	Markus Toivonen Petri Lindroos Sami Hinkka Janne Parviainen Netta Skog
Past members	Sauli Savolainen Kimmo Miettinen Jari Mäenpää Oliver Fokin Jukka-Pekka Miettinen Meiju Enho Emmi Silvennoinen

Ensiferum (Latin , n adj., meaning "sword bearing") is a Finnish folk metal band from Helsinki. The members of the band label themselves as "melodic folk metal."

Metal and folk melodies are played on lead guitar or keyboard, overlaying heavier heavy metal backing rhythms such as the classic gallop. The band also include fairly frequent use of acoustic guitars, usually at the beginnings of songs. The lyrical themes of their music most often relate to fantastical, archaic, or historic stories that can most often be grouped in with Nordic concepts, usually with heroic sentiment.

Ensiferum was founded in 1995 by Markus Toivonen (guitar), Sauli Savolainen (bass) and Kimmo Miettinen (drums). For the band's name, they took the Latin neuter gender adjective ensiferum, which means "sword bearer". In the next year, Jari Mäenpää was taken into the band as singer and second guitar-player. In 1997, the first demo was released, containing three songs.

In 1998, Sauli and Kimmo left the band and were replaced by Jukka-Pekka Miettinen (Kimmo's little brother, then 14 years old) and Oliver Fokin. In January 1999, a second demo was recorded, which although it did not produce a recording deal, boosted the band's confidence. In November 1999 a third demo, "Hero in a Dream", was recorded, which was successful in obtaining a record deal with Spinefarm Records. The logo that appears on all the bands releases was designed for the third demo by Tuomas Tahvanainen, who also designed the logos for the earlier demos. In 2000, the band went into the studio to work on their first album, Ensiferum, which was released in August 2001. In the same year, Meiju Enho joined them as a keyboard-player.

In 2004, after the work was completed on the second album, Iron, Jari left the band due to conflicts between scheduled studio work on his side project Wintersun and touring with Ensiferum. For the tour with Finntroll, Petri Lindroos from Norther replaced Jari on guitar and as singer, and became a member of the band after the tour. In December 2004, Jukka-Pekka left the band and was replaced by Sami Hinkka (Rapture). Oliver also left in 2005 to be replaced by Janne Parviainen.