Wardruna are less a band than a natural phenomenon. With their sixth studio album, the Norwegian collective continue their ambitious quest, crafting a grandiose form of world music that’s earthy and primal while at the same time an essential part of the here and now.
Birna, in very Wardruna fashion, focuses on the life cycle of the she-bear. It weaves together themes drawn from animism, pre-history and folklore with meditations on the natural world and the never-ending wheel of life, death and rebirth of which we are all a part, whether we dwell in teeming cities or shun human company completely.
From slow, quiet thuds to scrabbling explorations and moments of thrilling abandon, the album follows the wandering path of its ursine muse, at times foraging, resting in a death-like sleep or painfully bearing young, at others rising up to rend and devour.
The voices of founder Einar Selvik (craggy, ageless) and Lindy-Fay Hella (pure, eldritch) lead the fray, bedding in amidst strings, elegiac horns (literal ones, not the brass band kind), willow-bark flutes and stirring, deeply resonant percussion. The album opens with a muted heartbeat, the slow, rhythmic pound taken up by insistent drumbeats that soon become lost amid an orgic clamour of drones, voices and creaking strings.
Dvaledraumar rests a hopeful, rough-hewn vocal line alongside portentous strings and a glowering atmosphere that’s reminiscent of late-period Neurosis, while Ljos til Jord incorporates lilting flute and birdsong and Himinndotter pits rich, choral arrangements against voices that are rasped and ragged to the point of gurgling. Things are at their most dramatic with the breathy, pounding gallop of Skuggehesten and rousing closer Lyfjaberg, a piece that could variously be construed as either a funeral hymn or a life-affirming cry of triumph.
As with immediate predecessor Kvitravn, Birna is expansive in sound as well as approach. Yes, the album is steeped in history, and conjures natural sensations that range from the feel of rough tree bark and freshly upturned soil to the smell of crushed pine and fresh animal shit. But for all the stretched hides and whittled bones that are pounded, rattled, plucked and blown, the album also has a foot very much in the present thanks to the low-key ambient crackles, field recordings and undeniably catchy melodies on display.
This mix feels very on-brand for mastermind Einar, who’s equally at home scoring TV shows and videogames, lecturing on Norse tradition and quite possibly flaying an elk in the bitter wilderness to get the parts he needs for a new duffel coat. As fascinatingly learned as it all is, Birna, like all Wardruna releases, is ultimately something better felt than understood. It prickles the skin, energises the soul and seems powerful enough to conjure a sense of near-cosmic communion whether you’re surrounded by thousands in an amphitheatre or on your own, in your bedroom, with the curtains mardily closed.
More than 20 years after their inception, the band remain a genuine force of - and for - nature, and Birna is a perfect, powerful statement whether you want to hibernate and hide from the terrors of the world or wake hungrily to face it anew.
Birna is out now via Music For Nations / Sony. Wardruna's UK tour starts in Liverpool on March 17, for the full list of dates visit their official website.
