You know what they say: if at first you hate an album, play, play again.
It?s not Wardruna?s fault. I came to Birna with the worst mindset possible: a reviewer?s brain, pumped on half-a-life?s worth of expectations. After release day left me throwing a tantrum that this was not Gap var Ginnunga (because how dare a band grow and change and morph in almost 20 years of music writing), I had to try again. I parked my conscious brain with codewords and, pen in hand, I let the album play. And this time, I heard it.
As with many failed first-listens, what I?d failed to give Birna was free rein over my imagination. Where the thundering horns on the title track first threw me back to the incredible Tyr (off the final Runaljod album, Ragnarok) and made me snicker at them as bombastic Hans Zimmer blasts, on subsequent listens, I eased into the soundscape preceding it: the hum in the trees. The tagelharpa mourning. The gentle drum beat, at the pace of walking a forest path. Lindy-Fay Hella singing as if announcing, proclaiming, make way! Make way!