Review Summary: Hulder's newest album sees the band evolving into something cleaner and more pronounced.
Hulder has been a force in the USBM scene throughout the past decade. Her brand of raw, medieval, pagan black metal has always struck a chord with me. Harkening back to the days of bands like Bathory and Satyricon with triumphant melodies and ice-cold riffage, Hulder has always had a knack for toeing the line between lofi chaos and more modern style riffage. Her last album,
Verses in Oath, was everything that I love about medieval black metal. The keys hummed in the background while the shrill riffs completely took over and howls from the dark night haunted your soul. Now a duo, their newest release,
Verbolgen is somewhat of a step back in my personal opinion, but that doesn't mean there's not plenty to like.
Verbolgen continues along the lines of the previous album in terms of the pagan/medieval concepts and sounds, with chanting hymns and melodic leads accompanied by some folky instrumentation. My only issue is, and this may be a personal preference, that the rawness and first-wave influences of the first few releases is all but gone. Hulder has opted for cleaner production here, and while the riffs are certainly on-point and extremely catchy for the most part, the shrill aspect of their music is pretty much gone. This album kind of reminds me of something like
Dark Medieval Times or
Hammerheart if those albums had super clean production.
I'm not trying to put a damper on this because it certainly has plenty of noteworthy moments. The pagan influences are a nice touch, and like I said, the riffs are still very well-done. The vocals are also breathtaking most of the time with frontwoman Hulder opting for an almost death metal-esque growl most of the time, something that is new for her and a nice change from her banshee shrieks of all of the previous releases. They definitely add heavily to the folky/pagan vibes and the clean chants make you feel as if you're stuck on some sort of ritualistic battlefield.
Overall,
Verbolgen is an album that doesn't quite live up to its predecessors, but is also worthy of praise in its own right. Some of the changes the band has made are for the better and some are for the worst, but mainly, this is just a very well-done pagan/melodic black metal album that has its place within Hulder's discography. Like I said, my personal preferences would've liked something more lofi like they've done in the past, but you also can't fault a band for evolving into greener pastures.
