Helrunar - Baldr ok Íss (2007)

Back in 2005 this German three piece known as Helrunar made a huge impression on me with their debut, 'Frostnacht.' It was in a lot of ways one of the most unappreciated albums of the year and its of course no surprise, after all good music is usually ignored in todays black metal scene. I mean seriously why would you want to listen to a well produced, well composed, and slightly original album when you could listen to Xasthur croaking out another half assed attempt at atmospheric depressive yak shit that's destined to become cult and true just because it was recorded in his bedroom on an eight-tracker? Black metal is an enjoyable, but mostly excrement filled genre, but at any rate I move on.

'Baldr ok Íss' is a fine follow up to Frostnacht though I sense this time around the band drew some inspiration from Enslaved, more so than Taake or the early Ulver recordings, though just a little bit of Enslaved influence. The music (as before) appears as blistering fast black metal to more accessible melodic areas, some progressive touches (here's where you'll see the Enslaved influence working) and thankfully once again the acoustic guitars make their appearance too, though the full on acoustic, 'Winter' is by no means as stunning as 'Neun Nächte' was.

Skald Draugir's vocals are diverse for the most part, ranging from somewhat typical black metal shrieks to cleanly sung viking chants with the occasional usage of some spoken/whispery passages as well. The other two members hold up well too, Dionysos has once again wrote some instantly memorable and catchy melodic guitar parts, and drummer Alsvartr is diverse behind the kit and is not all about destroying it with blast beats at all.

What I found to be weird about the album is that there isn't exactly any single song that really sticks out and grabs my attention, but rather this is one of those albums where basically every song has something of interest for the listener. Thus you can throw this CD in your stereo, sit back (or whatever you do when listening to black metal), and enjoy the whole fifty minutes of it. Is it better than the debut? Probably not, but a solid effort nonetheless.