Danish outfit Myrkur had a busy 2023. Not only Spine but this TV show soundtrack too. Surprisingly, Ragnarok is the more straightforward of the two. Rocking rural stints of Heathen Metal, guitars frequently drop in with overdriven power chords, chunky rhythms and a touch of Doom Metal lurches. Bruun's Scandinavian tongue roots its viking feeling when in spoken demeanor, her ascensions into charming sung passes feel like a softly symphonic charm to dress up the rather dirty, gritty guitar tones.
Each Metal song alternates with an orchestrated alternative, softer instrumentation, often keyboards, pianos and strings. Odins Sang offers a Nordic folk chant over primitive percussion. For the mesmerizing Modgunns Tema, a different direction. Deeply calming, mysterious and natural, the gentle lonely notes that glimmer in its lingering reverb feel like a tribute to first light over a pristine snow swept forest.
This shuffling variety is refreshing, creating quite a journey. Initially I was drawn to its softer side but the Metal tracks have a charm in their simplicity. The aesthetic is spot on for conjuring pagan visions and rural hardships worshiping ancient gods. Its subtly impressive and a firm reminder of why I'm still interested in what they might do next. Although completely fitting, Ragnarok is still candidly bewitching, even more so Spine.
Rating: 7/10
Wednesday 3 January 2024
Myrkur "Ragnarok" (2023)
Friday 15 December 2023
Myrkur "Spine" (2023)
After the aptly name Folkesange, Danish outfit Myrkur return to the Black Metal tinged aesthetics of their origins. Spine muddies the waters with an uncanny sense akin to a "covers album". Like Humans sets this striking tone, the "talk to me like humans do" chorus arises from a rubble of darkly guitar rumblings and morose pianos nestled in a foggy, swampy drone. The cadence and melodies of Amalie Bruun carry an elevated yet contrasting spirit, rhythm and rhyme akin to catchy yet emotive Synthpop.
Continuously, her knack for lyrical delivery evokes this peculiarity again and again. Other elements suggested similar feelings too. The tense, tick tock alike synth lines of Mothlike and its gleaming flush, a rapid melodic guitar solo that erupts from an initial dark rumble, this too felt like a differing origin brought to to serve a peculiar chemistry.
As the album runs, many inspirations are woven into its fabric. A strange mix of hazy subdued extremity and light shining through gloomy clouds. Blazing Sky brings the bloat and bombast of a sludgy Doom Metal riff to the mercy of Brunn's earthly, gentle voice. Again, its illuminating pivot into a catchy chorus gives this unshakable sense of an original piece re-imagined through a dark and contrasting genre.
After many spins and much pointless research, I've learned of this records authenticity and grown to adore its peculiar position. It speaks volumes to its chemistry as these magnetic songs carry multiple spirits in tandem. The band have yielded a record that doesn't fallen into any typicality or genre pitfalls. Gracefully, they brew great music with their own unique spirit. Its been a breath of fresh air to say the least!
Rating: 8/10
Saturday 6 August 2022
Arcanist "Hyperborea" (2022)
Through forages of retro psychedelia synth know as Berlin School, and an artistic encroachment upon the forgotten dusty crypts of Dungeon Synth, Arcanist firmly caught my attention with their stunning debut Poseidonis. My knee jerk reaction to Hyperborea waned after a sour taste induced by spurious inclusions of esoteric Black Metal and sludgy abominably Doom Metal. As successive repetitions settled spirits across its four epic songs, I grew to love how musically ambitious this record is.
Unwilling to rest on laurels, Hyperborea brews its story telling with cinematic stride to journey vast and various musical landscapes. Unruly lulls of Dark Ambience hold over its forays into Medieval and Heathen acoustic folk. The aforementioned metallic spurts scale the summit as its valleys are navigated by captivating synth solos in the spirit of Progressive Rock. Best of all, The Coming Of The White Worm's plunge into the cosmic has another delightful reminiscence of my treasured Oscillotron.
A flow of engulfing atmospheric magic gushes forth, with sudden splashes of color, wild twists and dramatic soars along the way. Despite having different temperaments and aesthetics, the music is guided wondrously as these distinct musical spaces get woven together in a single narrative. It has the pay off only an album experience can offer as one traverses its eerie, bespoken wanderings into lavish drips of exotic synth. Ending on a loud and frightening conclusion, I am often startled, awoken to start the adventure over again. Its has been one of the best musical experiences this year!
Rating: 9/10
Wednesday 29 June 2022
Kalandra "Beneath The Breaking Waves" (2017)
Seeking more of The Line's immense serine soundscapes has led me here. Beneath The Breaking Waves is lacking its keen persuasion. After many spins, the scent ruminates like a "warmup" EP, a group finding their footing. Released three years prior to their debut, the magic is either sequestered of lacking entirely. Don't get me wrong, this folksy six track charmer cruises in a parallel lane but the chemistry is yet to be arrived upon. Each musician brings beautiful sounds, textures and craft to their parts.
Lacking the drive to swell and croon together like a symphony, much of the music lays its ideas bare. Padded by interludes and gentle atmosphere building, the feistier surges and potent melodies are brief sparks in fields swept by the drab calms that simmer in their own quietness. Unlike the experience of encroaching growth that came with each listen on The Line, these tracks tired quickly. It seems the components are in place but missing an inspiration to bring Kalandra to life, I'm glad they found it.
Rating: 4/10
Tuesday 21 June 2022
Kalandra "The Line" (2020)
This gem almost went amiss. Its subtleties slithered to a silence, a withdrawn instrumental softness letting this listener go by. Lacking gusto, bite or immediacy, only the striking resemblance to fellow Nordic queen Aurora held me in. If not another charmed, utterly gorgeous voice, the likeness would border plagiarism. Timbre, temperament, flow and inflections all swoon like a deja-vu. Its why I stuck around. With each listen I felt further from the words I initially wanted to share in this space.
The Line is a record of awe inducing landscapes, the resonance of which expressed aptly through its album art. Crimson skies lurch, whispering clouds part, the sunlight aches in to bless the primal earth beneath. We experience tits wonders as heathen inhabitants, devoid of technology and gods alike. Clearly a part of the growing Nordic Folk movement, Kalandra's strings pull on an endearing warmness. Unlike fellow contemporaries Wardruna and Heilung, they peer not into the northern darkness.
One could pen them as Soft Prog, gentle foragers of atmospheres with felicitous moments of Post Rock swelling and Etheral dreaminess. Tranquil, soothing and calm in nature, its rare flashes of hurried pacing, harmless brooding and climactic roars seem perfectly architectured, as if a force of nature. On its weathered journey outpacing the storm, occasions of rest incur with folkish tunes and tales. It all speaks to the ancestral human, married to mother earth, one that rumbles deep within us all.
And so with every passing listen, my initial foolishness, a deluded disappointment, fortunately grew distant. Somehow I was rustled by these "over indulged" instruments. Keen for vibrant melodies, a punchy baseline or tribal percussive groove, I was aloof to the atmospheric magic unfolding. Quiet is a strength, one that passed me by. The instrumental craft, a careful curation. Licks, grooves, riffs are subtly snug, every inch of aesthetic measured, fit together under a masterplan where nothing overpowers.
There are no particulars that leap of the page. Every song is a journey blossoming from a perpetual mellow flow. The record thus becomes river. Drop in, let its coolness wash over you and chill out. With at least a bakers dozen of spins under the belt now, it still grows on me. No doubts here, this could be honey that sticks for time to come.
Rating: 8/10
Wednesday 7 April 2021
Wardruna "Kvitravn" (2021)
These Norwegian musicians have been reviving their heritage for years now, utilizing historical instruments to ignite the flames of their viking ancestry. The last outing, Skald, was a performance piece of sorts, poetical recitals and minimalist accompaniment that failed to spark excitement with this listener. Kvitravn is a return to norms yielding a similar problem as its now established and familiar aesthetic passes without a gust of anything to break its gloomy droning march. Don't get me wrong, what these musicians achieve is beautiful and visionary but as there persona becomes expectant, groups like Heilung thrill with their claws lurching into the shadows and pulling out blinding horrors of ancient darkness.
Kvitravn plays with the same drudging pace. A weighty gloomy hangs overhead as the cold winds and constant rain batters its human inhabitants. Peering into a re-imagined past, Wardruna captures the spirit of burdensome life, one of hard work and death with a spiritual closeness to mother nature. Its songs tend to find different ways to this same macabre march of dragging heels and achy backs as its thick drone of flawed and aged instruments is led by the reluctant pattering percussion of bearskin drums, pulling the music along. Once established song meanders in its particular arrangement, circling the same rhythm and musical ideas over and over again.
Its on inspection that its repetitious nature becomes obvious. Trying to gleam out moments or details that sparkle, perhaps only the haunting choral cries of Viseveiding stand out. Without such critical ears it is all to easy to fall into its spell, the dull drones of blunted instruments become the curtaining atmosphere to bring about a subdued meditative state. In its mild gloom many moments feel ephemeral as its range of cultural voices sing Nordic tales, hardships and occasionally dive into the hysteria of softly guttural chants. The human voice is the element that ties the music together but as already expressed it is the puritanical approach that gives it little leverage over their previous output. For now I will put this record down and whenever in need of that nostalgic viking majesty, I may resurrect it for the dusky tone it conjures.
Rating: 6/10
Thursday 24 September 2020
Heilung "Futha" (2019)
Futha is more of an experience than a collection of formulated songs. It is what Heilung specialize in, esoteric, bleak and bewildering music that pierces a nomadic spirit with an atmosphere of fright and wonder. Primitive instruments, ritualistic chants and a tribal spirit forge inducing passageways of entrancing rhythms between heathen cries calling to the gods. These Norwegian have taken deep inspiration from a mythic take on their pagan heritage. Reading up on the use of bones, ashes and even antiques from temples as instruments, the music is as vivid as their dedication to it.
The best of the record comes with both the effeminate and male voices chiming, singing in native tongue over driving looped percussion with airy synths steaming into dense smothering atmospheres. With long and lengthy songs totaling seventy two minutes the repetitive nature sets in as a temporal, spiritual mood seeking the roots of a humanity that once looked very different. Futha takes its time, build ups are sluggish, some interlude ambiences steady forward with no sparkle or polish. It fits in so well to the vision but it is not always as captivating the initial charm on first listen.
The nostalgic purity is alluring but that undercurrent of mother natures cold cruelty is always present. In the final stages the record bites its teeth in with a grimness as guttural vocals are drawn in word by word on Elivagar. Its like the beginning of a cursed ritual, ghostly voicing uttering out every breath with a textural viscosity that brews in intensity. It leads into the last two numbers like a portal to the past, one is at the center of a psychedelia induced blood ritual of entranced primitive sacrifice. Futha offers up a remarkable experience in fractions but isn't always captivating from start to end. It is certainly worth your time if cultural music of lost tribes is in anyway enticing to you.
Rating: 7/10
Monday 20 April 2020
Myrkur "Folkesange" (2020)
Saturday 19 January 2019
Wardruna "Skald" (2018)
Purely by impression, his performance resembles runic scriptures and handed down heathen hymns. The poetry of cultures lost to time. His lone voice holds strong as simple single stringed instrument melodies repeat to set the tone. Only on Vindavla do the instruments switch to bring a darker, tense tone as the Lute alike instrument mostly delivers soothing and warm music. One can envision Nordic ancestors sat around a campfire as they exchange stories and sing poetry together.
At its end the record dulls with a fifteen minute accapella. His isolated voice not as charming alone. On my first few listens I struggled to be sucked in to this world but with patience it grew a little. The fault is probably with my own preferences as a richer instrumentation would have lured me in and cultural hymns are often not to my liking through human voice alone. It is however a remarkable performance in the right mood, a soothing and spiritual listen that will evoke historical echos of our humanity.
Rating: 5/10
Tuesday 20 November 2018
Dead Can Dance "Dionysus" (2018)
Rating: 8/10
Thursday 2 August 2018
Myrkur "Myrkur" (2014)
Tuesday 17 July 2018
Myrkur "M" (2015)
Thursday 28 June 2018
Myrkur "Mareridt" (2017)
Mareridt, Danish for nightmare, reveals so much more about their sound from the live experience, although it is probably a dimension to their sound your just not going to hear first time around at a show. The record however shows depth and emotion in abundance as the contrast between singer Amalie Bruun and her band goes beyond a simple concept and aesthetic, tapping deep into the folk sound of pagan cultural roots.
There is a very personal and mischievous period in the outro track Bornehjem, a childish Golem alike voice talks to its demons, leaving me to believe there is most likely a much more personal theme running through the lyrics, of which I haven't read, perhaps that is something I should make the effort to do. This band will undoubtedly be one of my favorite new discoveries this year and luckily there is their debut record to get into next.
Friday 20 April 2018
Winterfylleth "The Hallowing Of Heirdom" (2018)
The Hallowing Of Heirdom is a transformative listen, its earthly, mellow choral chants underline and uplift these songs with its heathen roots as worrisome stringed instruments sing the blues and hardships of rural life. With serine acoustic guitars and an inspired composition of cultural instrumentation the atmosphere becomes vivid with the mild and moody weather of England's restless shores. Across these twelve songs we travel through different temperaments, exploring imagination as these beautiful and quaint melodies inspire visions of natural beauty and the mythic culture of simpler times ravaged by the cruelty of mother natures embrace.
The opening track The Shepherd makes a remarkable entrance as the albums most gorgeous and charming song, it is also the records most involved and "complex" as we explore this world through songs that mostly become somewhat stripped back in comparison, perhaps leaning on the acoustic guitar or singular instruments. It feels fitting of the albums vision to not always lean to the most engrossing moments where the music essentially crescendos as all the voices line up together but through the record it finds its way to these peaks a fair few times.
Although a wonderfully indulgent experience it is not without its lulls, moments where it drifts off into itself however that feels unavoidable given the select handful of instruments that make up this clear and potent sound. Initially I was in awe of its beauty but then it hit me, I have visited this pagan realm before. The Nymph sparked my memory, its composition very akin to Agalloch's The White record. Both are wonderful listens but this one stretches itself a little thin in comparison however that's no reason not to enjoy this wonderfully scenic and soulful music.
Favorite Tracks: The Shepherd, Elder Mother, The Nymph