UNIVERSAL

Huldufólk

France’s pagan folk phenomenon cover themselves in glory

Skáld are prepared to stand out from the pagan folk crowd

AMONG THE RAFT of Nordic folk acts to have emerged in Wardruna and Heilung’s wake, Skáld are the most curiously overlooked. Curious because they’re actually massive: half a million monthly Spotify listeners, playing 3,500-capacity venues and album sales through the turfed roof. And yet you can sense they’re not taken as seriously as, or by, their more earnest contemporaries. Ever since their debut album, 2019’s Vikings Chant, there’s been a whiff of opportunism hanging over them – not so much because they hail from the non-Scandic region of Gaul, but perhaps down to their early promo pics looking like a Heathen fashion shoot, some overly obvious plundering of their dual overlords, and their tendency to stray from the Poetic Edda to reinterpret arguably non-canon sources such as Björk and The White Stripes.

With founder Christophe Voisin-Boisvinet now the only original member, Skáld’s third album isn’t going to assuage the doubters, but it is likely to help them continue their ascent. They aren’t alone in not reaching the rapt, transformative power of either Heilung or Wardruna, no matter how much the female vocals on opener Troll Kalla Mik mimic Lindy-Fay Hella, but they’re clearly having a lot of fun. Troll… and Ljósálfur are a thundering dual salvo, the former sounding like a rolling, oarsman’s chant, albeit shamelessly stealing from Wardruna’s Solringen, its successor a pounding forest rite suggestive of scene precursors Hedningarna. Countering Huldufólk’s more serene moments, the likes of Ríðum, Ríðum and Då Månen Sken have a distinct, identifiable momentum and a knack for both kinetic groove and songcraft that’s contagiously accessible in contrast to the over-sobriety so prevalent in their peers. Who among them would dream of turning Du Hast and The Cure’s A Forest into pagan chants? Skáld are charting a brazenly entertaining course of their own.