Borknagar - Borknagar (1996)

As Øystein Garnes Brun's death metal band, Molested, was nearing its end and black metal was already a well established genre in Norway, Borknagar rose in '95 as his new project and eventually his main project when Molested faded in '97. Longing to create something far more melodic and epic in character, Borknagar was meant to push the boundaries of black metal into new realms. With the line-up of, Øystein (guitars), Garm from Ulver (Vocals), Grim of Immortal (Drums), Infernus of Gorgoroth (Bass) and Ivar Bjørnson from Enslaved (keyboards) the band was offered a contract without even recording a demo and in the summer of '96, 'Borknagar' was released by Malicious Records.

If you've heard anything Borknagar has released in the past decade you've probably noticed that its all very much alike, cleanly produced, far more progressive and generally just not all that good, save for a few random songs spread out through those five albums. This debut however is incredibly diverse and its also very much a black metal record, whereas everything after this would continuously lack in the blackness and add more and more progressive metal touches.

Out of the ten songs five of them are actually instrumentals, while the main portion of this album is mostly blasting fast black metal with ample backing synth, melodic touches, occasional acoustic guitars and both the brutally shrieked wails and passionately sung operatic-ish clean vocals of, Garm. At its core, Borknagar really shows all its members bands styles off flawlessly. The epic nature and synth charged sections of this album are incredibly similar to early Enslaved, specifically the debut, 'Vikingligr Veldi,' while the blasting and rawness of the whole thing is quite similar to what was going on in Immortal and Gorgoroth, while the acoustic parts, melodic characteristics, the cleanly sung sections and the overall uniqueness of the whole thing is quite on par with early Ulver.

The five black metal songs, 'Vintervredets Sjelesagn,' 'Svartskogs Gilde,' 'Dauden,' 'Grimskalle Trell' and 'Fandens Allheim' are beyond exceptional, in fact I wouldn't hesitate to say that they are five of the best black metal songs ever. Everything mentioned above is well in place and perfected; the guitars buzz loudly and harshly, yet show off many melodious qualities constantly, the synths are full of character and atmosphere, the blasting raging nature of Grim's drums knock you out and Garm's maleficent screams are by far the best he ever performed.

Meanwhile, the five instrumentals all offer up something different. 'Tanker Mot Tind (Kvelding)' is an entirely synth based piece, which is quite majestic in nature, though it sort of sounds like ancient video game music by today's synth standards, though its still highly atmospheric and powerful in its delivery. 'Ved Steingard' on the other hand is a short two minute piece with both acoustic guitars and a catchy folk based melodic electric guitar playing over it, while, 'Krigsstev' maintains the blackened nature of the main songs, but Garm's non-word, "Ahhhhh" singing makes its presence as well as some acoustics. 'Nord Naagauk' is similar to Ved, though a variety of strange animalistic sounds appear within the background making it a bit unusual, whilst, 'Tanker Mot Tind (Gryning)' the albums final song combines acoustic guitar, piano and synth to create quite a heroic conclusion to this album.

In the end this is by far Borknagar's crowning achievement and absolutely one of the best black metal records too. Simply a must own.