Band: Nordvargr

Album: For the Blood is the Life

Album Year: 2007

Label:  Old Europa Cafe

Genre(s): dark ambient

Website: www.nordvargr.com, www.myspace.com/nordvargr

The prolific Swede has produced yet another fine slice of dark ambient with this album, but successfully introduced a few new elements that bring it up a notch or two…. rhythmic arrangements for instance that bring a whole new dimension to Henrik Nordvargr Bjorkk’s spectrum of musical and sonic exploration in the dark ambient field – the man never seems to stop and I have serious doubts that he actually sleeps, which is an entirely appropriate statement in the light of this CD’s theme, which is a “tribute to the folklore, myths and mysteries surrounding vampirism”. And indeed, the track titles all seem to be related to vampirism in some way (in fact we are offered a veritable world tour of vampire culture eg, Bruxsa is a female Portuguese vampire transformed through witchcraft, Talamaur is a South Pacific species, Swawmx was a vampiric deity worshipped by the Burmese and Algol, although the name of a star, is an Arabic word from which is derived the term ‘ghoul’, another vampire-like creature), although herein lies one of my quibbles – I found the typeface of the track-listing on the back somewhat difficult to read and I could just about make them out, even resorting to my glasses in alliance with a magnifying glass…

But it’s the music we’re here for and the sinister intro track Ekimnu (an abandoned corpse, restless/vampire soul [Babylonian]) sets the mood along with the deliberate insertion of warm vinyl glitches, sending me careening back across the years to all those hefty 45s & 33s I used to listen to in my early punk years and this  immediately plunges us back to a bygone era, a lost world,  an age where technology was still in its infancy and communities were infinitely more isolated and the world was indeed a bigger place still full of mysteries. Science was only just beginning to lay to rest the superstitions of the past, to refute the existence of the ghosties and ghoulies that inhabited the worldview of rural life. There’s a wonderful stalking menace that underlies all the tracks, of a hidden malevolence that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and keeps you looking over your shoulder constantly. An example: deep bass voices rising from the very bowels of the earth, rhythmic motifs that remind one of laboured breathing of lungs struggling to delay the inevitable whilst being toyed with by a creature for whom time and existence has no meaning (“Moroii” – a Romanian type of vampire). Another: the spine-shuddering otherworldly ambience of “Algol”, whose cold light bears down from above, the heartbeat slowing before the final embrace of welcoming death, the blood still warming, pooling, as the last shred takes its leave of life. The standout track is “Talamaur”, a brooding evil haunting the rugged landscapes of night, just like the castle standing menacingly above the village, its eternal presence a reminder of the shadow that lurks within its granite walls and is ever vigilant, just waiting for that chance to feed itself.

Make no mistake, this ISN’T about the media clichés of vampires, all that scudding of clouds flitting across pale moons, or weary travelers having to stay in out of the way inns, patronized by wary and frightened villagers, or the  dramatic pinnacled and battlemented castle atop an inaccessible column of rock and set against a roiling cloudscape, dimly (and ineffectually) lit by the pale light of a wan lunar orb, fighting bravely to soften the harsh edges of the environment below but being foiled at every turn.  What this IS about is sheer menace, an evil backed by a sharp and predatory intelligence, an evil that has been brooding for centuries in bitter and misanthropic isolation feeding the distance between themselves and the warmth of human society. There is also a current of a vast loneliness fuelling a tangible hatred of that which these creatures cannot have or feel… and the only way they can partake is to drain their victims of the one thing that sustains life and prolongs their own miserable loveless existence.

This is dark ambient at its finest, soundscapes that effortlessly provoke the emotions and atmospheres that the artist wishes to elicit and for my money Nordvargr is one of  THE masters… the wonder is how he manages to sustain this level of creativity and continue to hit the mark every time – must be those long Scandinavian nights. In other words there is dark ambient and then there is Nordvargr.

Rating: 9/10

-[S:M:J63]