Boasting former members of Nordjevel, Alsvartr and Dødheimsgard, I presumed that Varde was going to be a brutal barrage of barbaric black metal. I was wrong. This is a far more measured, almost cerebral, approach to the genre. This is particularly evident in the lyrical content, where Varde avoid the satanic and misanthropic cliches of black metal, instead concerning themselves with Norwegian ancestry and traditional Norwegian poetry which is central to ‘Fedraminne’.
Musically the album covers a huge amount of territory, and after teasing with a Nordic folk styled piano and vocals intro the opening track ‘Kystbillede del I’, a thirteen minute epic, builds into a dense slab of mid paced black metal. There is a more galloping approach elsewhere with rasping vocals and pulsating rhythms such as on ‘Halvdan Svarte’ and ‘Koll med Bilen del I’, bringing latter day Immortal to mind, whereas ‘Forbundet’ has a more ferocious, visceral slant. There is another opus with rasping vocals and scathing riffs which come together forming a black metal sledgehammer during ‘Et Gammelnorskt Herresaede’
However, all this talk of black metal, does not tell the whole tale and there is far more to this album. The title track is based around a lingering acoustic melody with sombre, spoken vocals which gradually grow and become more passionate as they are augmented by ethereal saxophone, whereas ‘Skuld’ opens with an industrial, almost disco, beat with harsh, searing vocals over the top. Electronic snippets break up the onslaught as this builds to a dense slab of metal still set atop industrial beats.
The album is brought to a close by ‘Kystbillede del II’ whose soothing intro with introspective melody grows with the addition clean, abrasive vocals. It lurches from smooth, serene jazz infused passages to intense monolithic sections.
This was not at all what I was expecting. It is undeniably black metal at heart, but it goes off on several tangents and the folk, jazz, industrial and even disco elements. In some ways this works well adding variety and stopping things from sounding too one dimensional, but on the other it stops the album finding its momentum.
This might not be everyone’s cup of tea, particularly if you like your black metal to be full speed the whole time but is you are keen to explore the murky edges of the genre, then give this a go.
(7.5/10 Andy Pountney)
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