Borknagar – ‘Fall’ (2024)
Rating: 9/10
Release: 23 February 2024
Label: Century Media Records
Borknagar is a Norwegian heavy metal band from Bergen, founded in 1995 by Øystein Garnes Brun. The band’s style combines black metal and folk metal with progressive and melodic elements. Borknagar’s lyrics often deal with philosophy, paganism, nature and the cosmos. Fall is the follow up to 2019’s successful True North release and sees the departure of Vintersorg on vocals leaving ISC Vortex and Lars Nedland picking up all vocal duties. In Øystein’s description of the process for writing Fall, he says “Music is like climbing a mountain. There’s always another higher peak.” This is apparent in the new Borknagar relapse, as the songs each hit their own musical peaks, brining a progressive sound to the overall album.
The first track, “Summits” is very reminiscent of their style we saw on The Olden Domain, blistering double bass drums, black metal vocals with clean mixed among the shredding guitars. It is a strong a perfect track to lay out the attitude of the album. The second track, “Nordic Anthem” is very subtitle and start out like a Wardruna track, but then breaks into powerful guitar riffs and chorus. The lyrics are very powerful and nationalistic, making it a true anthem for the seasoned Norsemen! “Afar” and “Moon” are very progressive in nature; both songs have an organic feeling but are also very varied with their use of time changes and styles mixed in. “Stars Ablaze” is another powerful track with darker lyrics, and highlights the true vocal range Vortex can put forth, showcasing his amazing abilities.
Northward closes out the album, coming in at almost 10 minutes long, but doesn’t disappoint. The track seems to be written to highlight each musician’s talent and brings it on full display. Fall is a very powerful and is a much darker release than True North. Overall, the album is very listenable for new fans and will please old fans like me who have been following the bank since the 1990’s. Borknagar shows no signs of stopping, and I hope they keep giving us releases like Fall.
Tracklist
- Summits (07:58)
- Nordic Anthem (05:14)
- Afar (06:54)
- Moon (05:51)
- Stars Ablaze (08:26)
- Unraveling (04:33)
- The Wild Lingers (05:34)
- Northward (09:54)