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Blog Categories Review Urferd – Resan - Reviewed By Zware Metalen!

Urferd – Resan - Reviewed By Zware Metalen! Thursday April 28 2022, 9:29 PM

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Urferd – Resan - Reviewed By Zware Metalen ! Check it out here at this link: https://zwaremetalen.com/albumrecensies/urferd-resan

With Resan, Urferd presents us with his debut. Behind Urferd is none other than Daniel Beckman who will be known to a number of readers as a member of the power metal collective Twilight Force and black metal company Ages. No power of black here but beautiful – and at times powerful – dark folk. The full, heavy production and simple but effective percussion appeal to primal feelings and take us through serene moments, dark forests but also battle scenes.

From the above description you have already understood that Urferd is more in style in the ritual, experiential dark folk of a Forndom or Heilung than with the song-oriented approach of, for example, Myrkur. What gives Urferd his own sound is the often pronounced cinematic character that he gives his dark folk. The album should therefore be seen as a musical odyssey: opening act Gryning still shows the serenity of a pleasant morning – including, yes, whistling birds – but during your journey you meet adversity, hardship and struggle. Yet the admiration for the size and beauty of the Norwegian landscape – and the connection urferd feels with it – breathes almost palpably through the music. Men's and women's singing can regularly be heard as an additional instrument; too present to be only background but just as rarely in the foreground. Perhaps as man should see his own role in this world?

After the quiet intro, Avfärd starts, immediately the longest song of Resan. It is a repetitive piece with instrumentation and melody typical of the genre. Two similar melodies, the second of which evokes a slight feeling of melancholy, alternate and are briefly combined. The variety is mainly found in the undulating intensity: the percussion is gradually enriched and the voice that comes with it, gives the whole that ritual character. However, due to the limited variety, this song is in my opinion less representative of the whole of the album.

Because Urferd highlights different facets of the dark folk genre on this Resan and is thus more varied than most of his genre peers. Strövtåg plays the melancholic card more strongly with a twinkling piano melody that floats on ethereal soundscapes. Towards the end, the music swells with religious-sounding voices that are strongly reminiscent of the neoclassical Arcana at the time of The Last Embrace (2000). Hymn immediately shows percussion with a full sound but a mysterious vibe. The melancholy that can also be heard here in the beginning is quickly relieved by a bombastic soundtrack with both men's and women's choir, all this on continuous percussion that thus holds the different elements of the song together. Despite all the bombast, the ritual-religious feeling remains strong. After a rest, the music works to a dramatic climax that brings with it a sense of catharsis. The song still ends somberly.

Envig lets us loose in the arena. The most prominent percussion to date is combined with proud brass winds. It waves up and down and lets out a lighter melody after a minute and a half. A little past the halfway point of Envig, the rhythm changes, as if the battle has entered a different phase. Towards the end it goes uptempo, the violin plays a more playful melody to end on an ominous note. - Zware Metalen

Release Date: April 15, 2022

FFO: Eluveitie, Moonsorrow , Equilibrium

Location: Falun, Sweden

URFERD signifies the beginning of a new and additional musical chapter for its founder and sole member, Daniel Beckman (TWILIGHT FORCE, AGES), and brings a refreshing new perspective to the genre, challenging the boundaries of dark atmospheric folk music. The first album “RESAN” is a musical odyssey in both a literal and figurative sense. The album takes the listener on a journey through dark and olden nordic forests; where strife and hardships follows in our steps, yet where the beauty and vastness of the solemn nordic landscape persists and permeates. From the album opening’s depiction of a serene morning’s dawn, to the closing track’s respite of a hearth at nightfall, RESAN traverses a multitude of captivating musical landscapes and themes throughout its eight songs.

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