Thanks to the Vikings show and its various copycats, the world has familiarized itself with certain aspects of Norse culture and history to a degree unseen before. The popularization of Viking-themed shows served as a big catalyst for selling everything Nordic, music included. Neo folk and dark folk projects materialized in the dozen seemingly from out of nowhere, like mushrooms after rainfall. While there were huge differences in quality, the one thing all bands had in common was an overfocus on Norse culture and mythology, as if there were no pagan cultures elsewhere. With time, a bogus term emerged. The tag “Viking music” has been around for some time now, with all sorts of outfits claiming to be performing just that. In reality, of course, there is no such thing.
“Viking music” is also one of the labels listed on the Bandcamp page of Sowulo from the Netherlands, the project at hand. While it remains an incorrect term, it is what people search for when they want to reconnect with the atmosphere of the various shows and movies which often serve as gateways to this kind of music. Searching for dark folk, neo folk or pagan folk would require knowledge of actual music genres which most people simply don’t possess.
Sowulo are a dark folk project and like with many other dark folk projects their primary source of inspiration seems to be the Nordic pagan past. The project’s founder and primary member is Faber Hornbach, a multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer. The band name is the Proto-Germanic word for the s-rune which simultaneously means “sun”.
“Wurdiz” is an expression for destiny in the same language and the title of Sowulo’s new album, their fourth full-length since their inception in 2012. The album’s twelve songs, says the band, are “all about the dance between fate and free will”.
Similar to other well-known neo folk and dark folk bands, Sowulo use historical as well as modern-day instruments to compose their songs. They also employ a variety of singing styles, ranging from spoken incantations to throat singing. Everything is additionally modified through the use of modern production techniques. The end result is a highly atmospheric, cinematic sound.
While the soundscapes will have a familiar feel to fans of Wardruna, Heilung and similar outfits, the focus here is a slightly different one. The stress is less on creating an authentic pagan sound, or on reviving pagan texts, but rather on creating a shamanic musical tool that can take the listener on an inner journey. I quite like that since it seems like a far more realistic goal than creating authentic pagan music. Because nobody has no bloody clue what pagan music actually sounded like.
The twelve songs on “Wurdiz” are sometimes melancholic and emotional, and sometimes grand and powerful with bombastic percussion. All compositions rely heavily on repetitions as structure which makes for a slightly monotonous listening experience. There seems to be intent behind this, however. The band calls the repetitive structure “cycles” and states “it follows our interaction with the Sun and tells the story of our inner and outer cycles of day and night, the four seasons, birth and death”.
Not bad at all. All in all, I liked “Wurdiz” better than the new Heilung album. However, it must be said that this release doesn’t offer anything new, exciting or particularly memorable. Easy listening for fans of dark folk and neo folk.
(6.5/10 Slavica)
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