Purity ThroughFire is proud to present Gnipahålan‘s actual second album, Folkstorm, on CD and vinyl LP formats. The CD version shall be released on December 25th while the vinyl version will follow early next year.
Gnipahålan is one of the main projects of Swartadauþuz – lynchpin of Ancient Records and also in such esteemed cults as Greve, Bekëth Nexëhmü, Muvitum, Trolldom, and Musmahhu among many others – handling all voices, strings, and synths along with various session drummers. As Gnipahålan, modernity is choked dead in favor of staunch ‘n’ strict mid-’90s classicism, specifically the retroactively-applied “second wave” of black metal across Scandinavia. With half a dozen demos, a couple splits, an EP, and a debut album from 2016, Swartadauþuz and cohorts have pursued a breathtaking vision of boundless traditionalism draped in hues of purple (and purple-blue).
In 2017, Purity ThroughFire linked up with Gnipahålan for a later, worldwide release of the self-titled debut album, and thereafter began a campaign of making the band’s recordings available on all formats – including two staggering double-disc collections in 2019. But it was Gnipahålan‘s I Nordisk Vredelusta in 2022 – at the time, thought to be the band’s second album – that pushed this alliance into the annals of greatness. Topping a full hour, I Nordisk Vredelusta was the then-unmatched crystallization of this intensely personal – and intensely authentic – aesthetic.
But keenly note “then-unmatched,” for now arrives a new Gnipahålan album, which is chronologically the band’s second album; it was written and recorded in two weeks during August 2016, with vocals recorded out in the woods, and session drums recorded during 2017-208. Accurately titled Folkstorm, this full-length strips away the synths of its predecessor and explores tundra even older and colder. Glacial, titanic, fatally freezing, but ominously emitting a beauty that simply must be marveled at, the comparatively unadorned Folkstorm breathes similarly new, vital life into specific idioms steeped in the darkest past. True Norwegian Black Metal (Exclusively), “cosmic” black metal, nightsky mysticism: whatever appellation one applies, the result is equally stunning – and stunningly refreshing, despite being reverential of that past which so formed the foundation of Swartadauþuz. Where Folkstorm further differentiates itself from the modern classic of I Nordisk Vredelusta is its slipstreaming shifts between massively wide-open downtempo moments and dizzying, cyclonic speed, with those characteristically spidery melodies taking on alluring-yet-haunting hues; not for nothing is the whole album 75 minutes, so all-encompassing is this experience. And even without those swathes of synths, Gnipahålan‘s spires of sound are spectral to the extreme.
If you were somehow unmoved by I Nordisk Vredelusta, then Folkstorm will do little to change your mind about Gnipahålan. Not everyone was around 30 years ago, but no more poignant an encapsulation of those times can be found than here…and Swartadauþuz is still ahead of everyone in black metal.
In the meantime, hear the brand-new/old track “Det Nordisk Urkallet” HERE at Purity Through Fire‘s official YouTube channel. Cover and tracklisting are as follows:
Tracklisting for Gnipahålan’s Folkstorm
1. Karolinernas Dödsmarsch
2. Det Nordiska Urkallet
3. Genom Stål och Død
4. Blodsband Genom Tidens Gång
5. Sprungna från Urtidens Kedja
6. Kall från Forna Tider
7. Ur Myllan kommen…
8. Storm av Nordisk Dödskonst
9. Blodörnens Kall…
10. Folkstorm