HULDER · Verbolgen | BLACK LP

Black vinyl in standard cover with 4-page insert.

Background information about 'Verbolgen'

There's something deeply unsettling about Verbolgen - and I mean that as the highest compliment. Hulder's fourth full-length doesn't just continue the trajectory set by Godslastering or The Eternal Fanfare; it rips up the map entirely. For the first time, Necreon steps out of the shadows as full co-leader rather than session contributor, and the chemistry between him and Hulder herself is palpable from the very first notes of "Drie Raven."

What strikes you immediately is the sense of space. Where earlier records felt like a blizzard closing in from all sides, Verbolgen breathes. The hurdy gurdy and keys from Keld weave through the tracks like incense smoke curling through a stone chapel, and Ianuaria's flute passages drift across "View From Nemeton" like mist over a frozen lake. The dual drummers - Vapula and Vrolok - split duties across the album, each bringing distinct rhythmic personalities that keep you guessing. Ahti Kortelainen's mix at Tico Tico Studio gives everything this earthy, resonant weight that feels ancient and immediate at once.

Three songs sung in Flemish add an incantatory, almost ritualistic dimension. This is black metal that worships at older altars: blood, soil, ancestral memory. Morrigan's cover painting - her first metal artwork in nearly three decades - captures that perfectly, all dark forests and older gods watching from the treeline.

For fans of:
Bathory, Dissection, Moonsorrow

Track listing

A1. Drie Raven (Intro)
A2. The Crowning
A3. Thy Binding Oath
A4. Verbolgen
A5. ...And We Shall Sing
B1. In Blood and in Earth
B2. Den Nacht Zijn Lied
B3. View From Nemeton
B4. The Glow of Dawn

Manufacturer: Sasu Soundworks Sarl, 126 Boulevard Bara, Heliopolis 2, Lot B4, 13013 Marseille, France, Contact: www.season-of-mist.com