Ravn - Svartedans (2024)

Country: Norway
Style: Folk/Black Metal
Rating: 8/10
Release Date: 30 Aug 2024
Sites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube

Oh, I like this band! They're from Trondheim, Norway and they play relatively straightforward folk metal with clean female vocals in front of a traditional heavy metal line-up: twin guitars, bass and drums. What there aren't are fiddles, bagpipes or hurdy gurdys, though I'm very happy to hear a nyckelharpa to open Syndera and thus the album. However, that's the only song on which it shows up, as it's courtesy of a guest appearance from Mathias Gyllengahm, best known for Utmarken, a folk metal band from neighbouring Sweden.

What that means is that the folk aspect of Ravn isn't a layer of instrumentation, as it sometimes can be; it's who they are, like, say, Bucovina. They're a heavy band, make no mistake, playing heavy metal throughout and dipping into black metal on occasion, but they're a heavy band playing folk music, even if it happens to be new and they wrote it. That nyckelharpa lays down a melody that's promptly echoed by vocalist Hildegunn Eggan and the band behind her happily bolster whatever she's doing, at least until the very end of the album, when they fade away on Hulderlokk, leaving her to finish out in haunting a capella.

I like the band but I really like these vocals. I don't speak Norwegian, so I don't understand any of the lyrics she's singing, but she has a fantastic crisp delivery that suggests to me that she has an impeccable intonation. My sister's most of the way to fluency in Norwegian now so I should send a copy of this over to her and see how she does with it. I recognise the pauses in between syllables from when she speaks Norwegian, but she doesn't do it remotely as well as Eggar and I'd hazard a guess that most Norwegians don't either. She also throws out a couple of what I'd have to describe as squeals on Krig that I absolutely adore.

Musically, the black metal is shifted to the centre of the album, so the opening pair of songs are all folk metal without that flavour being apparent. Syndera is an excellent opener, patient and heavy with folky melodies and those characterful vocals. Krig (or War) is better still, my favourite of the eight tracks on offer. It's slower but even heavier, with rumbling drums behind the verses, a strong bridge that oddly reminds of Iron Maiden, even though this is a very different style indeed, and a wonderful melody in the chorus.

The black metal shows up initially in Svartedans, which appropriately translates to Black Dance. It isn't as overt here, restricted to an intro that isn't fast enough or dense enough to thrill die hard black metal fans but clearly drawn from that genre. Then it drops into a melody and we're clearly back in folk metal again. That hint in Svartedans shows up with a vengeance in a pair of tracks that feature guest harsh vocals from Mikael Aasnes Torseth of Trondheim black metal band Keiser. The band dive firmly into his genre to meet him on Mare, then jump back into folk metal when Eggan takes the lead. It's an interesting dance. The two approaches merge in the chorus for Fimbulvinter, which is even more interesting.

And then Torseth departs and Ravn use Svik to come down from their black metal interlude. There are hints of black metal in this one, but it's mostly folk metal again, with a keyboard intro that's a lot like Enya, incorporating what I presume are synths manipulating a vocal sample. It's a livelier song than most of the folk metal songs here but it's not as fast as the black metal ones. It thrives on momentum but the final two tracks avoid that, going back to power chords and slower, heavier riffing.

They're also not new songs though I assume they've been re-recorded for this album, given that a "(2024)" appears after both their names. They were each released as a single, Evighet in 2020 and Hulderlokk in 2021. I like both of these, but Hulderlokk, arguably the most folky song here, is very good indeed, my second highlight after Krig. I don't know what it means, Google Translate giving me only Hole Lid, but I adore its majestic folk melodies and riffs, full of pauses and attitude, all the way to the da de da vocalised sections and that lovely outro.

So I've just found another favourite band, which makes it all the sadder to add that they went on hiatus on 12th August, only a couple of weeks before releasing this second album on the 30th. I'm not sure of the details why, but it's the old classic of "irresolvable disagreements about the way forward". Of course, there are two very clear directions on show here, one to folk metal and one to black metal, so the obvious guess is that these disagreements tie to that but I have no evidence whatsoever to back that up. It's just the obvious guess. If so, it's especially unfortunate because I like how the two merge here. There's a good balance to this album and a lot of that is through an overt shift from folk to black and back again, starting and ending with the purest folk elements.

The good news is that there's a previous album, I mørke natt from 2018, which is still available on Bandcamp, so I'll be happily checking that out when time allows.