Borknagar

Established Norwegian act, Borknagar has fulfilled its contract with Century Media—a contract that spanned over a decade—and the group has moved onto Indie Records from their native land and The End Records for American buyers. Borknagar has helped break some of Norway’s most prolific black metal vocals of a dual tongue such as ULVER’s Garm and I.C.S. Vortex (ex-DIMMU BORGIR/ARCTURUS. After nearly a decade of fronting this black metal/folk/prog outfit, Vintersorg (VINTERSORG) once again steps to the mic for “Universal.”

Starting with I.C.S. Vortex’s departing album Quintessence, Borknagar founder and mastermind Øystein G. Brun has perpetuated the band’s foray into progressive sounds. The mere concept of conflicting vocal styles is a progressive idea in its self (listen to Ihsahn and Opeth), but the keyboards have steadily pushed cosmic visuals as well as 70s mellotron (the beginning of ‘Abrasion Tide’ and ‘Worldwide’). Universal is also progressive in the sense of so many styles merging. This eight-track album offers the opportunity of a musical journey through black metal, folk, progressive, classical and even a little doom (‘Fleshflower’).

While early Borknagar releases related a production akin to a rugged, snow-capped mountain peak, “Universal”—as well as all of the Vintersorg releases—conveys a clear, star-twinkling cosmos. This production works well for the current incarnation of the band, as it did in earlier periods. Few bands create as lush an atmosphere as Borknagar and the crisp production on Universal suits well the violins, acoustic guitar, flute, piano, epic keyboard choirs and profound clean vocals.

The melodic nature of “Universal” may result in brief moments of placidity, but the group will jolt its audience awake with savage, up-tempo black metal. Take the album opener for instance: ‘Havoc’ begins softly, gradually releasing more action, halts for a second, and then launches into a savage and dark symphonic black metal section. Dimmu Borgir and Emperor fans take note of this track.

Speaking of Dimmu Borgir, I.C.S. Vortex makes an appearance at the album’s closing track, ‘My Domain.’ The said track is a sweet homecoming for Vortex. His work on “The Archaic Course” was nothing short of phenomenal, and his singing here recalls the same gripping performance done to similar nature-based lyrics.

Vintersorg presents a new dimension to his voice on tracks such as ‘Reason.’ This voice brings to mind the jester character often assumed by ex-Borknagar vocalist Garm but without his skill. All other voices are spot on as is the atmosphere. The style change ups are as smooth as ever, too. “Universal” shows Borknagar at its best and its worse (vocally), but the good songs far out weight the poor tracks, so it deserves at least an 8/10 rating.