Review Summary: A bleak and beautiful return
Utiseta was a cavalcade of lucid songwriting, lush melodies, and exotic instrumentation, all neatly packed together to create an indelibly eerie and arcane world for you to explore; a lost civilisation in a long-forgotten place. It was a special album to come out of 2023, not just for its great songwriting but for its vivid and expressive execution, making it stand out in a year already bustling with tight competition. In short, it was going to be a tough act to follow, and if you were expecting Thurnin’s third album to be a sequel that relishes in its predecessor’s bright, morish vistas, you’d be mildly disappointed with the results. Indeed, while
Harmr certainly resides in the same universe as
Utiseta, the album is more sombre in tone overall, moving its priorities onto a much darker, more riff-driven offering with far less focus on melody. That’s because
Harmr – which is old Norse for being in a state of grief or sorrow – is a eulogy for a soulmate he lost out of the blue on March 14th last year, and another shortly after. From the record’s title, which has multiple connotations to it, to the release date, composition and narrative flow, it’s clear a lot of thought and effort went into the concept and purpose here – which is to harness Jurre’s grief and channel it into a meaningful send off for two dearly lost friends.
In context, for those who missed Jurre Timmer’s fantastic solo debut album
Fragmented last year, the record actually works as a conduit for Thurnin’s sonic progression: shifting the scintillating energy and esoteric veil of
Utiseta into the poignant lamentations of
Harmr. Essentially
Fragmented was a bleak and austere version of Thurnin, which removed the bells and whistles from its sound, resulting in an intimate experience that allowed listeners to connect with Jurre’s vulnerable state. And so, what we get here is an amalgamation of these two projects. It’s the
Fragmented experience blown up to a much grander scale, met with the support of
Utiseta’s arsenal of instruments and idiosyncratic colours. Of course, there is a give and take with this approach; while this means it’s not as vulnerable as the former – the added layers from the string arrangements, wind instruments and percussive elements over the raw guitar riffs and progressions make it feel like a sheet of armour – the return is that it feels monumentally more effective. “Mana” and “Gefera” feel like a marriage, with “Mana” opening up with these agonising slides from what sounds like a tagelharpa and gradually introducing a load of string and wind instruments into the mix, which makes the track comport this lethargic haze. This then seamlessly segues into the beautiful “Gefera”, a 10-minute multifaceted epic with so many memorable melodies amidst the numerous passages branching off in the track. “Heortece” feels like a conflict of emotions as Jurre battles between composure and mounting rage, delivering some of the most beautiful guitar parts on the record and the most chaotic, with the booming percussion and shredding string sections, while “Arcturus” does a great job serving something less dour and more in the spirit of his last album.
Harmr doesn’t improve upon Thurnin’s formula, but it’s as equally formidable as
Utiseta – it’s just looked at and approached in a different way.
Utiseta felt like a fantasy, whereas
Harmr comes from a place of real anguish and as such, feels extremely grounded tonally. It still has all the great elements that made Thurnin’s sophomore album spark, it’s just being weighed down with a very real and crushing torment that’s all too apparent throughout, and I’ll be honest, by the time I got to the end of “Folkvangr” and heard the gentle meows echo in the closing seconds of the record, it cut me deep. Overall, this is yet another stellar record to come from this very ambitious and talented Dutch musician.
Harmr is a deeply moving dirge that earnestly displays Jurre’s grief in a way few can articulate so well. If you’re a fan of folk music, definitely give this a listen as it’s sure to be one of my favourite albums of 2025.
