WORLD
BY DAVID HUTCHEON
Wardruna ★★★★
Birna
MUSIC FOR NATIONS/SONY. CD/DL/LP
Norse explorers have been searching for the voice of the bear.
Over the course of five albums, Einar Selvik and Lindy-Fay Hella’s Norwegian ensemble have created their own universe, using natural sounds to complement traditional wind, string and percussion instruments (tagelharpa, kravik-lyre, bukkehorn), and taking Odin and runes as source material. This is a concept that, despite the spirit animals and sorcery, has much to say about what the old ways could teach an ignorant and uncaring modern world. Album six finds them searching a dying forest, threatened by the invasive march of progress and abandoned by the she-bear (Birna in Old Norse) that once protected it. The tempo is fixed to the pace of a hibernating bear’s heart (nine beats per minute); harmonically, though, this is a work of glacial power. Certain to find its way onto a future soundtrack, this is magnificent winter listening: play loud with the lights out.