Baldr ok íss

As much as I abhor the German black metal scene of the 90’s - or at least most of those bands (let’s just check the whole roster of Last Episode Records, with shit like Mystic Circle, Aeba and Graveworm and I can already puke in disgust), then I must also admit that in the past few years the scene in this country has improved a lot and spawned many really fantastic acts, some of which are actually my favourites, speaking of the whole black metal of nowadays. Such bands would definitely be Secrets of the Moon, Lunar Aurora, Graven, Vargsang, Sun of the Sleepless, Nachtmahr… And definitely also Helrunar, whose music I just worship – and you must know that I think of this band as one of the very best black metal bands around at the moment! I really like such kind of atmospheric black metal, one which is deeply connected to the nature and paganism, and which describes that with a strong bound to the acoustic music and so focuses more on the atmosphere rather than on the aggression. Helrunar really crushed me with their “Frostnacht” album, as well as with the incredible split EP with Nachtmahr, so at the time of the release of “Baldr Ok Iss” I was eagerly waiting for this album to come, so I can finally to listen to it. You can fuckin laught, but the day I got the CD I actually took a walk to the woods nearby my home and because it was already winter and it was freezing cold I considered it to be a perfect environment to give the premiere listening of “Baldr Ok Iss”. It can seem a stupid cliché, but such albums demand special conditions and then it seemed perfect, so I putted the headphones on and walked for something like three hours (until I had enough, because I frozen my ass too much hehe) and devoured those sounds from “Baldr Ok Iss”, thinking how amazing this album is. It was an amazing experience, believe me. Sometimes you can of course listen to the albums, while doing dishes or reading a book, but only when you open your mind and create special conditions you start to discover their whole charm and only then they seem to have a perfect sense. “Baldr Ok Iss” definitely proved that, on that day, when I walked around the forest paths, deep in snow and with the headphones on, cutting myself off from everything. Just me and Helrunar…

Ha, it is then fuckin hilarious that now, when I write this review, listening to “Baldr Ok Iss” again, it’s about 28 degrees outside, it’s the middle of the summer and I’m only wearing shorts, so hot it is. It probably isn’t the best climate for such albums, but fuck that, last week I felt a strong need to listen to “Baldr Ok Iss” and so I’ve been doing for the past few days at least two or three times a day. I started to feel a need to write some words about this album, as there may be some people, who live in unawareness of how killer is this band and this album! So, let me say it loud - “Baldr Ok Iss” IS ABSOLUTELY AMAZING ALBUM! And you simply must get it right now, if you haven’t got it yet.

For the musical roots of “Baldr Ok Iss” we must go back in time into the catacombs from the early 90’s, to Norway, really. Back then there were few amazing bands, which developed a specific type of black metal, one which wasn’t oriented on aggression and primitiveness of Darkthrone, but rather on something deeper and much more atmospheric. Ulver did their amazing album “Bergtatt”, Satyricon recorded their best materials of first three full length LPs, Enslaved came out with the coldness of “Eld”… He, there were even albums like Storm’s “Nordavind” and Wongraven’s “Fjelltronen” and obviously also Burzum’s “Filosofem”. And of course no one should forget about the one and only Bathory (“Twilight of the Gods”!!!!!)! This is I think the musical background for “Baldr Ok Iss”. I must admit that I love all the albums, which I just have mentioned. They’re probably my favourite black metal LPs ever, so to get anything in similar vein is always exciting for me, as long as it’s played with high quality and brings some killer songs. “Baldr Ok Iss” not only does that, but in many ways this album captured the essence of early Norwegian black metal and is equal to the brilliance of “Bergtatt” or “The Shadowthrone”. The songwriting of Helrunar on “Baldr Ok Iss” is just top notch, I must admit that it is very rare to hear so perfectly crafted piece of cold, atmospheric black metal.

“Baldr Ok Iss” captures the attention right after the acoustic piece “Dickichtgott” finishes and “Loka Lögsaga” begins. The riffing is excellent, melodic and epic, but also very aggressive and so there are as many mid tempo parts as those really fast ones, when Helrunar cut the throats with really slaying riffing. Add to that a lot of variations with the vocals, including the clean singing, and it turns out that “Loka Lögsaga” has everything what I like about this sort of playing. “Schwarzer Frost” is even more relentless, speaking of its incredibly fast pace and piercing riffage, but the cold atmosphere is kept intact here. It may surprise some of you that Helrunar quite often sticks to the fast tempo in their music, but it definitely doesn’t ruin the mood of it and they managed to capture the balance between it and everything else, including an enormous dose of acoustic passages within the songs. Those dynamics are one of the strongest aspects of “Baldr Ok Iss”, in my opinion. The songs are really well composed, with many hooks, great riffs, incredibly well performed vocals, plus I also really like the powerful production. In the end it is impossible for me to resist to such epic anthems as “Glamr”, which is opened by the acoustic piece called “Winter” and “Hunta and Boga”. Quite often the music reminds me also the American band called Agalloch and I must admit that both bands play their music in similar, awesome way. Cold, majestic, epic black metal!

Few words must also me said about the way “Baldr Ok Iss” is released. It is on the digipack, with fat booklet, full of drawings and symbols, reminding me some of the artworks of Burzum. It also has a bonus DVD disc, with a “Making of…” type of documentary, as well as an excerpt from Helrunar’s appearance on Party Sun Festival, here with three tracks. It may not be the most awesome of all DVDs which I have watched, but surely it is good enough to watch from time to time, as an extension of an awesome album.

If there’s anything I don’t like about “Baldr Ok Iss” then I guess it would be the fact that all the lyrics are written in German language. That pisses me off deeply, really. I understand that Skald Draugir feels more comfortable, when writing his lyrics in his native language, but when we deal with such a deeply constructed and presented concept, where every song is another chapter, then it is also very important to read the story, along with the music (in this case, it is a concept about the Baldr or Baldur). And how can I do it, if everything is in German and no one bothered to deliver the translations for the not-German fans? Anyway, I’ll forgive them, as the music makes up for everything. I can hardly resist “Baldr Ok Iss” and truly this must be one of the very best atmospheric black metal albums of such kind in the past few years, along with some of the material from Agalloch, Furia, Secrets of the Moon and Dornenreich. So excellent…!

Standout tracks: “Loka Lögsaga”, “Glamr”, “Hunta and Boga”, “Schwarzer Frost”

When I came across Helrunar’s previous CD “Frostnacht” I was rather interested in listening to this band. They are a German black metal band that stands out a bit more because of their tendency to lean towards a more folk approach to a genre which is largely swamped with bands damning the celestial deity or praising his demonic counterpart. And it was indeed a pretty interesting and listenable album, though not without its downsides. The band was allowed some leeway, of course, since it was only their first full length album and because it did show promise of progression.

“Baldr ok Íss” is the new offering, almost 2 years after the debut “Frostnacht,” by this musical threesome from Germany. The first thing that can be seen from the packaging of this album is that both the artwork (with its natural and organic colours) and the song titles again glorify nature in its different aspects. With that comes the addition of a bigger focus on Norse gods and myths, which is clear from the name of the album as well. There are now also more song titles Icelandic rather than on “Frostnacht,” though I assume most of the lyrics are mainly in German again.

Musically speaking the album is in most ways an extention to what was heard on “Frostnacht.” It is tight black metal musicianship varying between mid-tempo and fast blasting beats. Some nice riffs, though pretty straightforward music for the most part. The vocals are mainly your typical black metal screeches, though there are some clean vocals in the songs here and there which add to the feeling of this album being a folk or pagan metal album. And then there are the acoustic parts that pop up in some of the songs and even make up one entire acoustic interlude (the song ‘Winter’). The last song of the album is an outro with nothing but wind and the reciting of the Eddic poem which explains Baldr's dream and the way of his death.

The acoustic portions are really nice and they are basically what makes this album worth listening. Everyone who is familiar with a band like Empyrium will know what to expect as far as the acoustic playing is concerned, as the acoustic bits are highly reminiscent of this band. Even though they are one of the bright points on the album, they are also one of the main gripes I have with this album. What lowers the grade on this album is that there is always a sense of incoherence. It is never entirely sure whether this album was supposed to be a true folk metal album or a black metal album. Some songs are folkish throughout, with lots of acoustic playing and clean vocals (‘Baldr’), while others seem to be typical black metal songs with just a few seconds of acoustic playing tacked on in the beginning if anything (‘Íss’, ‘Til Jarðar’). It never feels quite right and the separate elements never really merge into one big whole, which is a big shame.

So what we have is still a pretty decent album from beginning to end. There is enough variety in the songs to stay entertaining throughout, though a masterpiece this is not. The songs are all quite good and it is not that this is a bad album, it just sounds a bit too much like black metal with some bits randomly added to it. This makes the album seem incoherent and it is distracting.

(Originally written for http://www.gothtronic.com/)

Baldr Ok Íss is the third Helrunar album, following their self-released 2003 demo Grátr, the split EP with Nachtmahr, and their 2005 album Frostnacht, also released on Prophecy’s black metal imprint, Lupus Lounge. The album finds the German black metal band extending their already extensive excavations into Nordic mythology, this time drawing inspiration from the same myth of Baldr, the god of light, which was used for Burzum’s 1997 keyboard-based album, Dauði Baldrs. Helrunar’s lineup is unchanged, still consisting of the power trio of Skald Draugir on vocals, Dionysos on guitars and Alsvartr on drums.


Produced by Markus Stock, well known for his own projects Empyrium and The Vision Bleak, Baldr Ok Íss presents ten tracks and 50 minutes of melodic, mid-tempo black metal with some clean singing and acoustic guitar interludes in between the furious riffage and pounding double bass drumwork. There is clean singing as well as the usual black metal growling vocals, and spoken recitation as well. The closing track, ‘Baldrs Drauma’, features traditional Icelandic rímur (chanted poetry taken from the Norse Eddas) recited against an ambient backdrop of icy winds. As with Frostnacht, the lyrics of Baldr Ok Íss are a mixture of German and Old Norse (Baldr Ok Íss is Old Norse for (‘Baldr and ice’). In terms of overall sound, Helrunar are similar to Blodhemn and Frost-era Enslaved or older Satyricon. The bombastic clean vocals of ‘Baldr’ recall Ewigheim, another Prophecy band. There’s a discernible old-school death metal influence, evident in the rocksteady riff of ‘Hunta And Boga’ and the breakdowns of ‘Schwarzer Frost’. And fans of Bathory’s Nordland albums should also enjoy the blend of metal and folk on offer here.


As is often the way with Prophecy releases, Baldr Ok Íss is available in a ‘Luxus’ edition as well as the standard CD. The Luxus edition comes with a bonus DVD containing live footage and a ‘making-of’ documentary. But with this extra material or not, Baldr Ok Íss would be a welcome and solid addition to any collection of Nordic black metal. It’s not really breaking any new ground for black metal, but these days, how often does that happen?


This review was originally written for Judas Kiss webzine:
www.judaskissmagazine.co.uk