HELRUNAR
BALDR OK ISS (CD+DVD)

Murmuring with the depths, catching stirring atmospheres: From the very beginning, Helrunar have always aspired to infuse traditional Norse Black Metal with icy life – and this aim has been reached on “Baldr ok Íss”, vehemently and passionately so. Under the guidance of producer Markus Stock, the trio has managed to fulfil their plan to record an absorbing and inevitably sweeping album without problems: “We have recorded ‘Baldr ok Íss’ within five days, using many first takes,” singer Skald Draugir relates, “and hence I had a lot of space to completely improvise, e.g. the closing track ‘Baldrs Drauma’ whose lyrics I recite in a way which I believe might have been employed by an ancient Skald as well.” The forceful dynamics of this album – after “Frostnacht” their second release on Lupus Lounge – stems from the dualism of two primordial principles, conceptionally embodied by Balder, god of light, and the force of ice. Skald Draugir points beyond the obvious and archetypical contrast between fire and ice. In fact, two approaches to life are confronting each other in the songs “Hunta and Boga” and “Glámr”: the knowledge of being part of a natural whole faces an “egocentric, isolated consciousness that tries to control the ‘whole’ and that by necessity has to fail ...”