Windir - Valfar, ein Windir (2004)

As many of you black/viking metal fans know, back on the 17th of January in 2004, Terje ‘Valfar’ Bakken the leader, founder, guitarist, vocalist and main song writer of Windir died of Hypothermia all alone somewhere in the Norwegian mountains. I still remember reading the news that day and being extremely grieved and practically coming to tears (well, no, but you know how it is) when I listened to my Windir records that evening.

Windir was in my opinion one of the best Norwegian black/viking metal bands at the time, and really one of the few remaining truly amazing bands from this country; on top of that it seemed as if their future was limitless. For those of you that don’t know, Windir was formed in 1994 by the then only sixteen year old Valfar, and at first the band was completely a solo project. He recorded demos in 1994 & 1995, and unleashed two full length albums in 1997 and 1999. Later in 2001 he recruited a full band to play with him and released what many consider to be the best Windir album, ‘1184.’ Two years later came, ‘Likferd,’ and this would unfortunately be the last studio album from this mighty band.

To commemorate the life of Terje and his band Windir, a two CD set of newly recorded songs, cover songs from various bands, live material and greatest hits collection was released by Tabu Recordings. The first four songs to be found on this collection are newly recorded songs as well as two covers from the old Norwegian band Ulcus (the surviving members of Windir's previous band). These four songs certainly carry on in the same vein as previous material, and yet still seem slightly different, but maybe that’s just because they don’t feature Valfar’s vocals. In any case though it seems like Windir was really up to something interesting with what would have been their next album, but of course will never see anymore than these four songs.

The next five songs are covers performed by Enslaved, Finntroll, E-Head, Notodden All Stars and Weh. Enslaved’s cover, well sounds more like an Enslaved song than the original Windir song, but it certainly is decent. Finntroll’s cover of, ‘Ending’ is again very Finntroll-ish sounding, but heck is there anything wrong with that? E-Head whom I’m not at all familiar with perform a cover of, ‘Mørkets Fyrste.’ It should however be mentioned that E-Head is not a metal band at all rather their more of an electronic/techno-ish band. Although this technoized version of the song is ok sounding it just seems really out of place on this compilation. Next up are the Notodden All Stars a super band featuring Cosmocrator (Mindgrinder & Zyklon), Samoth (Zyklon & Emperor), Trym (Zyklon & Emperor) and someone named Invictus. Musically this song is a brutal death metal version of, ‘Destroy’ that is quite well done, but then again its death metal so it doesn’t do as much for me as the original version does. Finally Weh perform a cover of one of my all time favorite Windir songs namely, ‘Likbør.’ Interesting enough though Weh (the solo project of Erik E.) perform the song in a neo folk style and the results are just fantastic. Likbør already was a rather emotional song and to have it performed acoustically in a neo folk style makes the song all the better.

Finally closing out the first CD are two live tracks recorded in Trondheim on 27-09-2003. I was fortunate enough to see Windir live in 2003 and listening to these two live songs really brings back some great memories of banging my head like mad, screaming as loud as possible and fighting some asshole over a Windir shirt, even though Valfar looked me in the eyes and through the shirt directly at me (no lie there). In any case these two songs are produced quite well and definitely give the listener a good idea of the Windir live battle.

Disc two opens with two songs taken from, ‘Sognariket’ demo from 1994. I found these two songs to be particularly interesting since they show a much rawer, grim, and dare I saw true black metal sound. The production is obviously a little weak here, but the sinister riffs and Valfar’s vocals sound excellent. I've always wished the two demos would see a re-release someday, but I suppose that's not going to happen. The remaining ten songs are among some of the best Windir songs taken from the four studio albums. I should mention though that this really is a fantastic collection of Windir songs and it certainly gives a new fan a nice idea of the music Windir once made.

In the wake of Valfar's death attention towards Windir rose dramatically and Valfar became something of an iconic Pagan warrior too many young listeners who were not even aware of Windir's music while the band was active.

All things considered, ‘Valfar, Ein Windir’ truly is an impressive two CD set that will greatly please long time fans and has definitely made new fans in the process. Terje really was an incredible musician, vocalist and song writer and he will be greatly missed by many.