Melodic Pagan Black Metal from Denmark
Fjorsvartnir seems to belong to that quite wide category of one-man-bands inside metal, especially black metal, genre. This album is better than I expected. Musically it reminds me of late Bathory and Immortal combined together with Nargaroth and Manowar. One could even think of compositional elements related to Emperor, though Fjorsvartnir lacks the electrifying energy associated with the nearly orchestral compositions characteristic of Emperor.
The melodic parts don’t sound as random, meaningless and stereotypical as they tend to sound among bands labelled into melodic black metal genre, they actually seem to have some sort of idea behind them, which is always a pleasure to hear. Folk influences are very much recognizable, and the melancholic melodies differ from the most commonly used compositions in a positive way. This can especially be heard in guitar solos, which pose a good opposite to the otherwise masculine and aggressive basic black metal music with their melancholic, melodic tones, influenced by both the Nordic, especially Finnish, schlager tradition and East European folk music. Fjorsvartnir has the courage to combine both traditional aggressive black metal and delicate musical elements together with an original tint, having occasionally some resemblance also with bands like Nokturnal Mortum. Blastbeats are used profoundly but this style fits the aggressive, yet musically creative and surprising big picture just fine. Singing is technically well performed and fits well the overall musical atmosphere of this record, which is aggressive and fast, yet intelligent and emotional.
Technically this album is of good quality and well performed, though some of the authenticity given by crappy sound quality and a fair share of mistakes in the 90’s style is missing. The biggest problem with Fjorsvartnirs debut is that it has many good elements, but it lacks the full coherence that would bind those ideas tightly together. Great ideas and moments sound a bit unfinished to me. I hope that in the future Fjorgynn finds more patience to develop his ideas further, since they definitely are worth of profound processing. Again, technicality is not a problem with this band, but as with many others, it’s the red wire behind all those songs, which distinguishes the very best from the good. Though from my perspective this band is just on the border, so a little bit effort and development in the future on composition of songs, and it might very well reach there.
What comes to lyrics, the quality of music doesn’t quite follow there. I hoped for more influence from f.e. Bathory’s Hammerheart or Nordland-albums considering both the bands and albums thematic elements, even from Immortals Blake-and Poe-oriented texts on my weak moments, which expectations were met in the lyrical parts written in Danish. In English, the lyrical essence consists mainly of conventional descriptions related to common overall descriptions of ”ferocious Vikings” and Nordic mythology combined with under-the-belt expressions, such as ”and all of their small bitches / we shall rape”. Since this band could also be classified according to lyrical and musical output as distantly belonging to the holy subgenre of beer metal (the most famous examples of this genre being Darkthrone and Nattefrost), these clichés could theoretically be considered as funny if they wouldn’t so completely lack creativity in their formulation.
”Legions of the North” is definitely worth of listening to, even if you’re not a fan of viking themes and melodic black metal subgenre. Fjorsvartnir succeeds in making interesting music with fairly fresh taste, combining elements both from primitive, aggressive black metal, viking and heavy metal as well as from folk music, although I’d advise not to read lyrics written in English.
Sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
