URD

I confess that I'm not a fan of Borknager or of black metal. I was intrigued by a recent review of this album that claimed that this band has been getting more and more melodic and less black metal. I will admit, though, that I enjoyed Borknager's older album "Empiricism", as it contained wonderful folksy melodies and much creativity.

So, I listened to this new album, and I came away unimpressed. Maybe a dozen or more listens would allow this to grow sufficiently, but I don't think I can bring myself to do that. This band is certainly more melodic, but that doesn't stop them from the overuse of the bass pedal or the "white noise" effect of the rhythm guitars. I hate those things. They have also omitted the folksy melodies, and replaced them with, well, nothing. Maybe some vocals harmonies that aren't that impressive? They have also taken away the rather intelligent lyrics, as far as I can tell (it can be hard to decipher them, obviously). So, all points of interest for me are now gone.

What we have, then, is a constant storm of double bass (with no variation at all), a blurriness from the guitars, and some okay vocals. Everything else is lost. On top of that, there is little variation between tracks, so the album itself becomes a blur, too. I'm sure fans of Enslaved and Ne Obliviscaris will love this, but I'm don't.