ALBUM REVIEW: Viking War Trance – Eihwar

If this neofolk boon we’re living through has you yearning for the crunch of leaves under your feet, you might think EIHWAR look the part. All furs, animal bones, and warrior garb, they appear lost in time, here to transport us to the old ways. Except, crucially, EIHWAR imagine what it’d be like had ancient societies discovered the synthesiser. Viking War Trance is the name of the record and an effective genre tag, summing up the way analogue and digital are forced into an unhappy relationship in which one always seems to drown out the other. Dancing round stone circles at midnight and on sticky club floors can lead to a certain transcendence, but the ingredients of both experiences are so different that, paired together here, the results are a little confusing.

Don’t get it mixed up: EIHWAR are bringing something new to a saturated scene. They correctly identify the feelings brought on by two diametrically opposed styles of music and seek to create something new through their fusion. Going off word-of-mouth, it sounds as if they achieve this on stage. The costumes, the constant pound-pound-pounding, the slight tongue-in-cheek of it all; it’s really just a bit of fun. 

Which rubs up against the extreme commitment from other acts of this sort who have emerged in the last decade. Some use long-forgotten languages, others use real animal bones as instruments, all seek to reach a sublime connection with our ancestors and the myths they passed on to us. EIHWAR just wanna dance. So despite the aesthetic, Viking War Trance has more in common with the repetitive structures of trance music than the delicately layered compositions that unfurl from their more ambitious peers. 

There are times it all falls into place. Ragnarök ebbs and flows, benefitting from the space to develop between movements and to return to earlier ideas. Berserkr is the band distilled into four minutes, an obvious high point among tracks which lack identity and blend into one another. Before each ‘drop’, electronic programmer Mark heralds its arrival with a guttural proclamation, a sort of ceilidh dance caller for an apocalyptic rave. It’s a good song, but it also feels like their only song. 

Adding to the confusion, it’s all rounded off by the delicate little Sir Mannelig, inspired by the Swedish folksong of the same name. In this context, it sounds like the minutes following a DJ’s last song, calm in the cool night air. Yet it could belong on MYRKUR’s Folkesange collection of traditional music, like a lullaby from centuries ago. There’s no winking, and there are no strobe lights in sight. It’s beautiful. 

There are different reasons genres come and go out of style, but the neofolk revival arrived at a time people are rediscovering life away from modern conveniences. Vinyl sales are through the roof because they are tangible objects on which art is deliberately presented, away from the immediacy of impersonal playlist culture. By introducing EDM influences to a predominantly acoustic scene, the genre’s sheen wares off. EIHWAR aren’t reaching for authenticity in the same way as HEILUNG or WARDRUNA; if anything, they are poking fun at how serious it all is. But this leaves them with a neofolk element that doesn’t sound all that sincere, over a dance music foundation that isn’t all that interesting. 

There’s far too much of the same on Viking War Trance to appeal to those who want otherworldly aspirations in their neofolk. Those looking for something tinged with Nordic folklore to dance around to might just find something in the band’s unique blend of genres. But for all that, everything points to EIHWAR as a must-see live act, and based on this outing, that isn’t hard to believe. 

Rating: 6/10

Viking War Trance is set for release on September 20th via Season Of Mist.

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