At first, the RMR crew froze in place. Ereb Altor‘s newest and best Hälsingemörker sports a whopping 21 minutes of extra airtime over Vargtimman. In other words, the band went from a perfectly timed piece to bloatware jungle camp. And there are two lines of thought to this. Either they completely lost it in the self-edit department, or their song-smithing skills increased in spades to spare us from withering away from sheer boredom. So, what’s it gonna be?
The only way to find out is to give this piece here a few spins, painful as they may be. Big fat blurbs of an overblown metallist’s nightmare or delicately structured Nordic metal delights steeped in ancient lore? Just launch the damn thing.
Isole. That’s what comes to mind once Hälsingemörker takes off. A rougher version of the latter, true. And without much of the poignant tear-searching but with enough built-in and kinda gothic melancholy. And that’s somewhat unsurprising, of course. Both Mats and Ragnar hold prominent positions in the latter’s act large bosom. Ereb Altor now completely lost their formerly tight ties with Bathory-esque Black Metal-ism. Instead and while there are still remnants of Black Metal in their tune, the band is now drifting toward Moonsorrow-esque atmospheric melodics. Pagan and Blackened Folk Metal with a powerful connection to Wardruna-esque Pagan Folk.
So, what does all that mean? Hälsingmörker presents an almost perfect fusion of Ereb Altor‘s straight-in-yer face signature metal style of belted clean vocals that roar in on soaring, powerful, and atmosphere-laden melodies and often outstanding harmonious concoctions (Ättestupan, for instance). A vocal offering that gets broken up with some growls and snarls whenever the gravity of the story demands it. And then, the band will hit the mix with picture-perfect breakdowns into wispy ambients drunk on tasty synths and often amazingly haunting flutes and keys (e.g. The Last Step at about 5:10).
Astonishingly, Hälsingmörker also sports a strong affinity to Pagan Folk proper and paganized Folk Metal. Vargtimman already contained some hints toward a folk-laden new direction. Yet, this was nowhere near the intense focus the genre gets on this here record. For instance, the Wardruna-esque Skogsrået – the tale of an ominous forest nymph in Scandinavian folklore – gave us pause. A song played fully on archaic instruments with some neat progression to boot. This is exactly what the folky RMR DNA hungers for. And now we also know what this extra time was used for. Because the tracks in the trilogy – Midvinter, Skogsrået, and to a lesser extent, The Lake of Blood – all kinda fit into this category. And that is an interesting development. Many a Black metal band drifted from the savage devil’s horns to paganized folk. And that made us wonder what comes next with Ereb Altor.
And yet. Hälsingemörker could surely and still benefit from the cruel carving knife to some degree. In other words, the gluttony in airtime is by far compensated by the record’s variety, true. But that doesn’t mean the band did their very best to contain bloat. If you listen closely, you’ll find a number of instances with an extra loop of a riff or sub-theme repeated once too many.
So, finally, the question poses itself: Did Hälsingmörker successfully navigate around that pitch-black reef of an overinflated playtime despite the aforementioned reservations? Well, you’ll get a tasty medley of next-level Blackened Folk Metal and a gourmet-type brand of rough-hewn Extreme Metal with the occasional growl. And all this neatly embeds in an ever-growing deluge of folky themes or even Pagan Folk proper. Not to forget the outstanding vocal performance that effortlessly vacillates between snappy brutality and high-reaching clears.
And despite Hälsingmörker‘s pretty rampant complexity, the RMR crew found an astute and well-written new record. Even with the lushly distributed extra time, Ereb Altor managed to concoct a great album that won’t bore you one second nor will it overwhelm the fanbase with a densely constructed wall of sound firing on all compressors. Instead, this often sounds like what Moonsorrow should have done a long time ago. A well-arranged gaggle of tracks able to regale you with often cathedral soundscapes full of tasty morsels the Scandinavian metallurgy in musica can cough up.
Record Rating: 8/10 | Label: Hammerheart Records | Web: Official Band Site
Release Date: 7 February 2025