Saturday, July 23, 2022

BERGSVRIDEN - Gastkramad review


 

BERGSVRIDEN - Gastkramad

Northern Fog Records


A few years ago I checked out this Swedish folk metal act called MIDVINTERBLOT. Yeah I'm one "those people" meaning I like folk metal. Anyways they had a cool album from 2016 called Skymning which I thought was decent as far as genre standards go. But the band had just that one album and then nothing. 


So here we BERGSVRIDEN which has three members of MIDVINTERBLOT. Both bands existed in the same time but BERGSVRIDEN has three previous full lengths to their credit. BERGSVRIDEN really don't sound similar to their other band. There's no violin, woodwinds or a female vocalist. Now they are not just a stripped down version of MIDVINTERBLOT. This is blackened folk and damm good. 


Now the mixing of folk and black metal has been done so often that I'd have to go to the archives to name every band. But let me just say there are bands who are black metal and add in some folk. And then there are bands who weave the two styles together into a beautiful tapestry. BERGSVRIDEN is obviously in the latter category. 


Musically this is on the melodic black metal side with some screechy vocals. There's cool song structures with those folk inspired galloping rhythms. Some of the tremolo picked solos come off like 60's surf influenced. Plus the drum work is exceptional. From beginning to end this is a perfect album.


https://northernfogrecords.de/

LISTEN HERE:

https://bergsvriden.bandcamp.com/



No comments: