Review Summary: A soundtrack for a theatre play which turns out to be something special: Myrkur tries out... viking metal?
It was a bit difficult to approach this release. The reason for this was that this release was not originally intended to be an album. The situation is quite simple though:
Ragnarok was composed as the official soundtrack for a play at the Royal Danish Theatre under the same title. However, it became available for the public as a standalone Myrkur release as well. This alone had a significant surprise factor, but personally, I was surprised by the fact that while previous Myrkur album (
Folkesange) and subsequent tracks were all gorgeous folk songs crowned by Amalie Bruun's beautiful singing, in this release metal music resurfaced... and I honestly believe that
Ragnarok finally brought forth what I've been eagerly waiting for from Myrkur: a touch of viking metal!
The structure of
Ragnarok is rather simple: every second track is a metal song, and everything else is ambient or folk music. The album begins with the rather cinematic piece
"Ragnarok Tema", which quickly evokes the atmosphere of the far North in pleasant slowness and somber violin melodies. I believe that the album truly blossoms in the song
"Krigersang", which is also, in my opinion, the strongest track on the entire release. The synergistic work between the guitars and clean vocals shapes and leads this song, where the simple and icy beauty of northern folk melodies blend seamlessly into a slower, moderately-paced, heavily melodic metal foundation. This formula also applies to the much doomier tracks like
"Jætternes Sang" or
"Hells Sang", or the more black metal-inspired
"Kampsang" as well. I would also like to highlight the excellent production of the metal tracks on
Ragnarok. The sound of the guitars and the bass are pleasantly full, gritty and thick; combined with simple and sometimes military-like drumming: everything was given to make this slower-paced viking metal sound great.
Certainly, we can’t forget the rest of the tracks on this album, although they didn't really captivate me that much. (I'd like to emphasize here that I evaluate this release as an independent work, despite its original purpose.) Essentially, the whole
Ragnarok is a short (around twenty-three minutes) release, but these ambient / folk segments feel even shorter than the optimal, especially in cases like the very Wardruna-esque
"Odins Sang" or the somewhat Enya-like
"Badlers Tema". These pieces appear too compressed and brief, and a longer duration would have suited them better for fully unraveling the musical imagery. The rest, the piano-based ethereal ambient tracks,
"Livs Tema" and
"Modgunns Tema", seem merely like fillers among the other songs, not leaving much to be said about them...
In conclusion
Ragnarok is a multifaceted release where mainly ambient and folk theatrical music is evenly mixed with Amalie Bruun's highly melodic viking metal, intertwined with hints of folk, doom, and a touch of black metal. Beyond being a stage-composed piece, it stands well on its own, and I personally hope that this won't be a solitary and unrepeatable point in Myrkur's discography.
