Monday, August 23, 2010

WINDIR - 1184 (2001)



For me at least, the honeymoon with "folk metal" ended right around the time Finntroll stopped looking like this and started looking like this (mid-00's?). But there are Viking/Folklore/Mythologycore Black Metal bands that will forever withstand the test of time -- they are few and far between, to be sure, but Sogndal, Norway's WINDIR are definitely among them. Blending a curious mix of accordion, occasional drum machine, ambient, spacey synth, and "traditional" BM instrumentation (live drums, guitar, bass, screeching vocals), Windir put out a string of solid, folklore-driven albums between 1994 and 2004, led by multi-instrumentalist frontman Valfar (above right).
Sounding a bit like last week's offering Hellspawn, Windir's aural assault was a well-calculated cacophony of orchestral madness, whip-smart and not at all kvlt. Although the band began as Valfar's one-man project, the steady addition of more and more musicians to the fray was a wise one, as Windir's sound grew fuller and more realized over the years. Unfortunately, Valfar was trapped in a snowstorm and froze to death in 2004, putting an abrupt end to the career of one of Norway's finest folk-metal outfits. Pretty fucking metal.

Download HERE
Purchase HERE

SognaMetal (posthumous DVD tribute to Valfar featuring Finntroll, Enslaved, and the surviving members of Windir) on Blockbuster (???) / Century Media / Amazon.UK

Metallum / Last.FM / Website

RIP Terje “Valfar” Bakken 1978-2004

6 comments:

Mister Booze said...

Not bad. That freezing to death bit really gets me. Aaaanyways, I'm wondering if you know of any folky type metal that doesn't have any folk instruments in it? The only one I know of is Tyr. Gotta bulk up for the long winter looming.

Shelby Cobras said...

You might get a fiddle or a couple Grandpa's guitars here and there, but my "desert island" records for stripped-down folk metal can be found here and here (although, in retrospect, I'm pretty sure you already have these...). Maybe Isengard?

Shelby Cobras said...

EINHERJER is another band conducive to wintertime mead-swilling.

Anonymous said...

WTF Dad?

Ezra

Aylmer said...

is that Aesop's son?

Shelby Cobras said...

or someone making an inside joke...