By Steve Knapp
In the world of folk metal, what sets bands a part from one another is their ability to dig in and tap into their roots. If they can do this, it takes their music out of the realm of novelty and infuses it with a strong sense of honesty. Icelandic metalheads, Skálmöld, capture this successfully and bring their roots to life with their latest offering, Með vættum, once again taking fans along on one heck of a journey.
From end to end, Skálmöld’s guitar riffs are massive and seem to be chiseled from iron wrapped mountains, fitting right in with the rhythm section’s thundering base. Each composition is tight and doesn’t let the listener fall by the wayside with superfluous segments or ostentatious noodling. It’s an all out instrumental rush that does well to vary in tempo in order to escape the death trap that is monotony.
And while the instrumentation is rock solid, it’s the vocal performances that stand out song after song. Björgvin Sigurðsson’s voice remains guttural—almost troll-like—and gives songs a much-welcomed rawness. You’ll hear this almost immediately in the album’s first and (in my opinion) best track Að vori. What sets his growl apart from other metal leads is the clarity and annunciation that comes with it. Sure there’s aggression to be thrown into listeners’ ears but there’s also subtlety that needs to be delicately painted throughout in order to deliver the overarching message successfully.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9n-fUv1ZDKI[/youtube]To ensure things stay interesting, clean vocals and melodic shrieks are sprinkled throughout and provide a colorful contrast. It’s as if the vocal parts are battling one another, not in a detrimental way but in one that drives energy into each of the performances. The album also utilizes Skálmöld’s tendency to intermittently strip down their music to a more traditional folk sensibility in order to keep a firm hold on your attention—a move not uncommon to fans of the genre. These short asides build atmosphere and make the fall back into the maelstrom of distortion and bass that much more gripping. You’re with the band the entire way; they throw you on a horse rather than dragging you by your ankles screaming.
Every so often the clichés inherent in the metal genre as a whole fade through to the front. It is here that the album can start to chug, but Skálmöld do a decent job coercing the music back into their grasp, ultimately rescuing songs from falling into a pit of the generic—sometimes getting a little closer to the edge than a listener might like.
It is a beautiful, expansive album, laying out an icy odyssey that can’t be fully appreciated with just one play. Returning fans of Skálmöld will find it fits in perfectly with the rest of the band’s discography and won’t be pushed aside once future recordings find their way to the surface. And while it might not surpass their 2012 album Börn Loka, it successfully does everything in its power to keep the band’s energy and unique approach to folk metal alive.
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