
Artist: Wardruna
Title: Birna
Genre: Pagan / Neo Folk / Black Metal / World Music
Release Date: 24th January 2025
Label: By Norse Music / Sony Music
Album Review
Three years in the making and three cycles of the sun between ‘Kvitravn - The First Flight Of The White Raven’ and ‘Birna’ or ‘She Bear’, Norwegian Norse Folk purveyors WARDRUNA are back on top form with 10 songs of organic storytelling, this time around focused predominantly on the majesty and magical wonder of Ursus Arctos. It’s about this warden of the forests and her battles not only with nature but also humans, who continually encroach and / or destroy habitat so this majestic creature ends up being pushed into “permanent hibernation”. Anyway, let’s delve in and see what delight we can dig up...
The first track here is ‘Hertan’ (‘The Heart’) and I find it warm and primal, it comes up from the “heart” of your being like a spiralling smoky hand encasing you in warm wispy fumes. I find the sinewy strings magical. The title track ‘Birna’ (Icelandic, She Bear) starts with strings sustained and inform of soft drums, Lindy Fay Hella’s distinctive vocal floats in the background like a pendant in the wind. Its mossy eastern with a Norse chill, the horns imbue the power of the bear and its carnivorous majesty. Einar’s voice is very wide throated on this, just like a bear’s. Like many other WARDRUNA tracks this send my mind wandering and I can hear the flutes as I leave my body.
What I glean from ‘Ljos Til Jord’ (‘Light to Earth’) is an awe of the creation we live on, its abundance, its range, colour and smells. And its vast majesty. I can envision all that sans humanity, because they ruin it! Above all I feel a primal wondrous joy! ‘DvalDraumar’ (‘Dreams Of Wandering’ or ‘Dream wanderer’) takes us on a creeping dark nocturnal meander. The atmosphere is black and smoky brown to me. The brown signifies an earthly preoccupation from a lofty position and the coat of a bear as it navigates through the denseness of a dark arboreal landscape. Again, there are horn bellows, the resonance backed up by vibrations that tingle like sharp stabs of a cold wind. Einar’s vocal is clear and stout, Lindy’s soft and reflective. Midway the voices pitch lower to high priest levels, my mind sees the outstretched arms, heads looking skyward. stringed trinkets shimmer in the minds light, Lindy sings low like a Aoidos enchanting. Splendidly soporific!!! As I drift sweet sounds recall me, a siren breaks my descent into the heart of me, Lindy...
‘Jord Til Ljos is a follow on from ‘Ljos Til Jord’. This time I feel an awe of the Gods or the God, or whatever it is that made everything. The tension or feel in this track feels more, I don’t know, erm, expansive? Cosmologically focused? There’s an aerated vibe, feel, floaty and upward centric. ‘Himinndotter’ (‘Daughter Of Heaven’ or ‘Sky Daughter’) features the Norwegian Choir called Koret Artemis and plays on the celestial nature of the bear which has been part of many cultures for thousands of years. Whether native American, Greek or Biblical if we look up and look north, we can see the bear. Heavenwards we again look, the heartbeat of the bear races, we can smell its power and acknowledge that something more powerful than us exists. It conjures memories of long-lost woods and forests; it uses those memories to implore the sky to help the woods to return. The track pleads and implores, the accompanying video shows Lindy Fay Hella gyrating in sympathetic abandon to a lone tree as if to imbibe the lone one with the magical sustenance and the soil with new found fertility. This is a determined and hopeful tome, windswept, fresh and aromatic.
‘Hibjornen’ reminds of medieval plain song in vibe. This track is built like a wicker fence. It lolls along in a wooden jaunty way waxing lyrical about the sun shining over fields, meadows and the dens of she bears and he bears as the animals awaken from the wintery slumbers. ‘Skuggehesten’ (‘Shadow Horse’) bounds with tension, fires flicker on torches carried by riders on dark horses as they gallop over plains and grasslands, through trees and over mountains. There are sounds and fears that accompany the way. The journey is made from within on the stages of the mind. It’s about galloping forward, feeling the fear and the exhilarations but you go forward anyway. ‘Tretel’ (‘Three Tales’) is the penultimate track and it starts out with a low and slow drum beat. And the simply intricate strings weave a wonder of webs in the mind’s eyes dripping with dew on a cold autumnal morning. Stomp - stomp - stomp the drum goes, once entrapped in the web with the help of the drum nothing else seems to matter for that moment. I’m just resigned to my mind images of majestic nature and its treasures and dangers. Seeing that the album is a tribute bears a bear would be remiss if not included in my daydreams.
Finally, ‘Lyfjaberg’ (‘Medicine Rock’ or ‘Healing Mountain’) ends the musical journey. I’ve reviewed this before when the ‘Birna EP’ was released last year. What I wrote then has not changed. It sounds as if someone walks in a windswept place breathing in the refreshing chill of the air. The expansive primal environment grabs your burdens and pulls them away as you feel unburdened and lighter of foot. Everything in this track is magical and coaxes the transformational if you sync with the beats. The drum is natures beat and the voices the sounds of the wind and hidden beings who manoeuvre through the trees, around the rocks and up the streams. My burdens like toxic Jotun splinter and crumble after listening to this. At the end of the accompanying video, Einar, dressed in black, stands in front of a body of water which in turn stands in front of a line of autumnal trees, which in turn stands in front of cloud topped grey peaks. His arms lower from chest height to his sides. Deep breath, a burden shape shifted into a being of calm... ohmmmmm.
I listened to ‘Birna’ in many ways. Either through headphones when out walking or in the lounge through my best speakers. Given the subject matter and tone I felt the best way to experience the album was to take up a hibernating position. So, the central heating was turned up so my bedroom was at 20 degrees and the lights were turned down to a minimal red glow. Then I pressed play and dived under the duck down duvet. I say “duck” because I don’t think many bears hunker down for winter on a bed of polyester fibre, snigger, snigger. And it is only now that the setting is complete so the sounds and mind scents of WADRUNA can wash over me. It does not matter, by the way, if you understand the message about the bear, it does not matter, feeling the sounds and allowing those mind scents to infuse your being is just as relevant. If not for an hour but for a moment you get to switch off and switch gears then there are many ways to do that. ‘Birna’ is one of those ways.
Tracklist
01. Hertan
02. Birna
03. Ljos Til Jord
04. Dvale Draumar
05. Jord Til Ljos
06. Himinndotter
07. Hibjornen
08. Skugge Hesten
09. Tretale
10. Lyfjaberg
Line-up
Einar Selvik - Vocals, Words, Tagel Harpa
Lindy Fay Hella - Vocals
Eilif Gundersen - Bukkehorn, Lur, Flute, Backing Vocals
HG Dalgaard - Drums, Percussion, Backing Vocals
Sondre Veland - Percussion, Backing Vocals
John Stenersen - Mora Harp
Arne Sandvoll - Percussion, Backing Vocals
Website
https://www.wardruna.com/
Cover Picture

Rating
Music: 8
Sound: 8
Total: 8 / 10