Going back almost 40 years, I was staying in a remote area of Iceland called Lake Mývatn and I saw a glow in the distance from my room. When I enquired about it, I was told there’d been a volcanic eruption and it was hoped that the lava would divert away from the settlement I was in. People flocked, at least in an Icelandic sense, to see it and I wanted to see it too so I found a local geologist who took me in his jeep across barren landscapes to get within striking distance of the volcano. I mention all this because Nyrst, who are from Iceland, rehearsed this album a short distance away from an erupting volcano and have centred their latest album on their harsh and dangerous natural surroundings.
Of course there’s a storm to begin. It is matched with a blazing guitar line and imperious vocals. This is black metal of the most contemptuous and unforgiving variety. The control is strong, as here Nyrst prefer burning fire over brute aggression. The harsh opener is the title song “Völd”, which appropriately means Force, Power or Might. The “for fans of” column lists a number of Icelandic bands, the only one I’ve heard of being Sinmara, but I certainly know about Bathory and Immortal, although I wouldn’t really draw comparison with Immortal whose atmosphere is more of fantasy where this is of grainy reality. “Sundra Skal Sálu” is icy cold and windswept, with a deep and pained vocal line to match. Here Nyrst drag us through a harsh blizzard with suitably horrible screaming to finish.
“Hrimvíti” (Hellfire) is a more upbeat, attacking black metal piece. Imprinted with the hymnal qualities and tempo transformations that I had heard so far on this album, its atmosphere is constant and is first and foremost an assault on the senses, I found. “Fjalli∂ Andar” has a sound effect which is common to black metal: chasmic breathing. It does sound as if a voice is coming out of a volcano. It is but an interlude, and “Eilift Edhaf” re-lights the fire. Imbued with an obtuse rhythm, two and a half minutes in, it slows down and a distant hymn is chanted with minimal backing before re-building the scene and reigniting the fire. I cannot fault it for atmosphere but structurally it’s complex and it lost me a little. Atmospherically, the spiritual blackness of Enslaved came to my mind. “Drottnari Nafnlausra Gu∂a” (Lord of the Nameless Gods) on the other hand is black metal of the gnarly kind, raucously and grimly punching its way through its bleak agenda, that is until there is a ghastly scream and suddenly there is turbulent chaos in the air. The guitar rhythm plays out remorselessly. The drummer hits hard without mercy. Like “Eilift Edhaf”, it twists and turns and is structurally difficult. The album ends with a typically thunderous and dominant piece “Af Fjarri Ströndum” (Of Far Shores).
It’s possible that I had higher expectations than were reasonable, but “Völd” didn’t inspire me in the way that I thought it might. I felt at times that I was missing something as the band theatrically play out their ghoulish scenarios. The music fell between atmospheric and standard black metal, and I felt the vocal histrionics were overdone. I didn’t really get a sense of natural forces being at work or influencing the album. This said, the band input plenty of drama into this bleak and dark offering, demonstrating the turbulent atmospheres that black metal and Nyrst in particular can transmit.
(6.5/10 Andrew Doherty)
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