ALBUM REVIEW: Lifehunger – Vreid

Norway’s VREID, after being forged from the ashes to WINDIR back in 2004, have gone on to become one of the premier contemporary Norwegian Black Metal acts. Since their 2004 debut record, Kraft, the band have gone on to release more records than they did under the WINDIR banner, with their latest one, Lifehunger, being their eighth record in their fourteen year existence. Even eight records deep into their recording career, VREID show no signs of running out of ideas or becoming irrelevant, with this latest one in particular being one of their darkest and most impressive offerings to date.

Flower & Blood, a short intro track, centres around melodious acoustic guitars that build plenty of atmosphere and anticipation for the rest of the record. It’s a short but sweet piece of music that starts the record off on the right foot. One Hundred Years is an epic, razor sharp affair with some powerful guitar hooks and solid drumming that makes this song so good. The vocals are shrill and acerbic, and sit well alongside the more melody tinged lead guitar parts. Gradually shifting from a speed-driven and grating affair, its slows to a relative crawl and then begins to make use of chanted vocals and acoustic guitars, to great effect.

The album’s title track, Lifehunger, is an incredibly dense and heavy sounding track, with sludgy, dirge-like guitars and bass sections that are peppered with jarring, discordant flourishes that give this a solid progressive feel. It sounds utterly bleak from start to finish, and has some truly tight, impressive lead guitar licks that add plenty of interesting moments into an already interesting and eclectic song. It’s far from the best song on here, but it’s still a great piece of melodic black metal that is full of enthralling and powerful music. The Dead White, with its great, disjointed lead guitar motif, is a powerful black ‘n’ roll track with some progressive elements thrown in for good measure. The rhythms on here, especially the drums and thick, sludgy bass line, prove to be an excellent foundation on which to craft the rest of the track. The guitars are slick and utterly engrossing, providing plenty of great moments in this track, and competing with the bleak and bestial vocals on this track for centre stage. Towards this track’s climactic moments, some brilliant and sublime acoustic guitars are thrown into the mix, which really adds plenty of light and crisp hooks to contrast with the dense and palpable tone of the lead guitars.

Hello Darkness, which ushers in this album’s second half, showcases VREID making great use of more minimalist guitar licks and a heavily distorted tone to make a song that well and truly stands out on this album. With clean, mist-shrouded vocals leading the track, backed by some haunting guitar passages, bubbling bass hooks and solid, authoritative drumming providing a steady metre, it’s a very different affair to any of the four tracks that came before it, eschewing of the harsh and aggressive edge that VREID are known for and embracing a softer, atmosphere based offering. This is a great, interesting track, and this experimentation pays off well. Black Rites In The Black Nights is a slow burning track, initially built around a military drum beat and a haunting, minimalist guitar that begins to gradually incorporate plenty of melody and far more intricate motifs that make it sounds all the more monolithic and ferocious. The music is extremely tight, but at the same time there’s plenty of points where the guitars and drums are able to head down a far more progressive and unorthodox path. It’s got a thick, eerie and fierce sound, with an underlying vastness that gives this track feel massive.

Sokrates Must Die is a short, sharp shock of fierce and ferocious melodic black metal, with punishing drum lines, a powerful, crunching bass and sharp, grating lead guitar tones that dance throughout this whole song, and provide plenty of great, jarring hooks that stick in the mind immediately. This is VREID doing what they do best, creating impressive, immersive black metal with a noticeable hard rock influence governing the structure of the track. The eighth and final song on the record, Heimatt, is a suitably epic way to bring this album to a close. The opening guitar motif is sparse and again makes great use of distortion, before launching into a slow, bleak and morose offering which blends black metal with haunting doom metal elements, to great effect. With some impressive rhythm parts backing it up, the guitars are really able to be as diverse and expansive as possible, ranging from a misery drenched snails pace to a far more aggressive and speed driven one, with plenty of powerful riffs, peppered with melodies, filling this song’s six minute span. The fact that this is an instrumental track works incredibly well, as it really allows the music to take centre stage and fill the void left by the vocals. It’s a brilliant way to end this record, and leaves the listener wanting more.

Lifehunger is an excellent record, and it’s clear that VREID are not just producing some of their best music to date, but they are also looking to expand their sound and incorporate a lot more influences and styles into their already impressive sound. This is a great successor to Solverv, surpassing the bar it has set for them with ease. Lifehunger could very well go on to be regarded as one of their career highlights, and is one of their best records of the last five years.

Rating: 9/10

Lifehunger is set for release on September 28th via Season of Mist.

Like VREID on Facebook.