ALBUM REVIEW: Om Jordens Blod Och Urgravens Grepp – Häxkapell
HÄXKAPELL may only have a scant number of releases under their belt, but already the one man act has established itself as an impressive creative force within Swedish black metal. Embracing a formula that possesses a strong Viking metal and folk influence, along with liberally melodic guitar work, the band’s first album, Eldhymner (2021), set a suitably epic and stunning tone musically, and showcased some extremely powerful and adventurous songwriting that isn’t common for the vast majority of one man outfits. Their latest album, Om Jordens Blod Och Urgravens Grepp, sees the band’s sound become far more confident, broadening significantly and allowing some of the subtler elements that were present on their debut to take on a central role.
Satans Rötter kicks the album off with a huge, dramatic piece of pagan metal, complete with sonorous vocals, bleak, haunting folk flourishes and muscular, dancing guitars, which immediately make for a powerful and immersive sound that adds a depth and atmosphere to even the most caustic and ravenous black metal elements, ensuring that the listener is immediately drawn in and setting a lofty benchmark for the following five offerings from HÄXKAPELL to surpass. Metamorfos leans prominently towards the kind of angular, melody-tinged black metal that lay at the core of the opener, with biting riffs, energetic rhythms and coarse, wraith-like vocals making for a far darker, intense affair than the relatively mid-paced, but ambitious opener. Although things begin to shift back towards the distinctly slow and sombre approach later in the track, this is defined by a fast and visceral approach that is incredibly easy to appreciate. Urgravens Grepp Är Hårt Och Kallt strikes a fine balance between the engrossing, cinematic qualities of the first effort and the driving ferocity of the second, with sinister vocals and authoritative guitar work having subtle, delicate touches and soaring melodies interwoven around them, ebbing and flowing from dense, traditional black metal through to epic, melancholic moments with an ease, lending this a varied and monolithic feel.
Hem, a shorter effort than earlier songs, strips away the harsher elements of this record’s sound in favour of polished, yet eerie, acoustic guitars, clean vocals and a minimalistic percussion that still possesses tonnes of character and an instantly memorable sound despite its spartan formula, making for the perfect segue into the following number, Vindar Från Förr. This is yet another evocative slab of mid-tempo melodic black metal which places a solid emphasis on the underlying folk components that have filled out the sound on this album, with dancing violins counterpointing the thicker, cavernous musicianship that backs them, creating an expansive and anthemic piece of music that stands as one of this album’s most adventurous offerings. Den Sanna Modern Talar, the lengthy juggernaut that brings this album to a close, does an extremely good job of knitting together the numerous stylistic elements that have run through this album, creating a grandiose and eclectic take on the music featured on this record, with blistering bursts of belligerence vying with measured, morose sections, with a healthy dose of palpable folk and lighter interludes providing a dramatic backbone upon which the weightier parts of this sprawling effort are brilliantly overlaid, capping proceedings off in imaginative and bombastic fashion.
The one most obvious differences between Om Jordens Blod Och Urgravens Grepp and the album that preceded it is the bolder, ambitious approach to songwriting from HÄXKAPELL. Eldhymner, although undoubtedly an impressive album in its own right, sounded much closer to a straight forward melodic black metal record, with a few folky hints injecting some variety into the mix rather than fully incorporating these elements into the overall sound. On this latest record, these lighter touches play a larger role in the sound on each of these offerings, leaning much closer to viking metal at many points, whilst still leaving plenty of room for harsher, aggressive moments as well. It’s an eclectic and powerful record from HÄXKAPELL that makes for a more engrossing and atmospheric album, and serves as an excellent template to work from for any future music.
Rating: 8/10
Om Jordens Blod Och Urgravens Grepp is available now via Nordvis/Silent Future
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