Raw / Old School Black Metal split from Norway.
"It's not for me, but for my loneliness," the Man van Melle once said. Alone is indeed only alone, so Messrs Ggatzshriiegk and Peregrinus decided to join forces with their respective one-man projects Vorgfang and Unholy Craft for a real split entitled "Ulf's keptr". In Norse mythology, the title refers to the "jaw of the wolf" and is associated with the wolf Fenrir and Ragnarök, the end of time. Just Google this interesting matter. Now you also know immediately which scene is depicted on the album cover.
Vorgfang may not be unknown to you if you closely follow the ins and outs of the Portuguese Altare Productions. They released the fine debut "Skammens stein" in 2022 and last year the excellent successor "Viser fra ildens enger" was released, for the time being only on tape. Still, this split appears via the German Purity Through Fire and that is not surprising since Unholy Craft mastermind Peregrinus is at home with two of his other bands, namely Kvad and Solus Grief.
Vorgfang excels in ice-cold, raw and furious black metal according to traditional Norwegian recipe (read old Darkthrone and Gorgoroth), but refreshed with glorious guitar leads and melodic keyboard motifs that dare to nod at the old Polish and French scene and paint the folkloric mythology of the homeland with a dash of color in the compositions made up of black and gray tones. Each of the four songs that Vorgfang wrote for this split contains some memorable riff with the folky melody lines of "Mjød og blod" as an absolute highlight. A band to keep an eye on!
Those who thought that Vorgfang was already a grim affair may be even more overwhelmed by the four songs of Unholy Craft, which, except for "Tyranny of winter storms", are all performed in the native language. After all, Unholy Craft's anti-Christian black metal sounds a bit more chaotic and even icy, biting and sharper, especially due to the extreme screaming vocals of Peregrinus, an element that is sometimes experienced as disturbing when the man tears his vocal cords to shreds. In "I evighetens skygge" he also shows some convincing clear guttural sounds. Peregrinus is also a busy boss, not only did the first two Unholy Craft longplayers "Naar all tid er omme" and "A blaze of tridents" only appear earlier this year, but also with the already mentioned Kvad and Solus Grief, follow-up albums were already released in 2023 for the debut albums that appeared a year earlier. We are not going to take a closer look at those releases, but those who do like this Unholy Craft, can now look for the other projects of this hyperactive Norwegian.
"Ulf's keptr" brings a successful combo of the frostbitten and grim black metal of Vorgfang and Unholy Craft, the latter of which cannot yet match the song material of Ggatzshriiegk.
Sample:
Vorgfang/Unholy Craft - Ulf's Keptr (2023) - 𝘚𝘱𝘭𝘪𝘵
