Myrkur: Folkesange review – Danish black metaller makes dense, intense folk

Plait-wearing girls knitting on mountaintops don’t usually feature on the albums of black metal artists, unless they’re shot in stark monochrome and looking particularly murderous. Myrkur (AKA Danish musician Amalie Bruun: her stage name is the Icelandic word for darkness) has taken a different turn on her album Folkesange. The woman Metal Hammer once described as “scaring black metal shitless” is now burrowing into a lifelong love of Scandinavia’s traditional music and writing her own modern versions, and without sacrificing her intensity.

Folkesange was inspired by the succes of a YouTube video Bruun posted in 2017 (it currently has 50,000 likes). On her version of Swedish folk song Två Konungabarn, she accompanied herself with nyckelharpa, a hurdy-gurdy-like instrument that produces long, intense drones. Bruun also became a mother in 2019, which she has said made her think more intensely about her roots and shared history. She plays every instrument on this album, including mandolas and lyres, layering sounds to conjure up the power of Norse mythology.

Sometimes, the effects are like Clannad on speed. Nervous souls should persevere with opening tracks Ella and Fager Som en Ros. But throughout, Myrkur’s vocals are beautiful and bright, especially on Harpens Kraft, a Norse supernatural ballad, and House Carpenter, once sung by the Watersons and Joan Baez. Elsewhere, deeply eerie, pagan atmospheres rule. The piano-accompanied Vinter would be perfect for a David Lynch short. Tor i Helheim uses electrifying, shrill kulnings (Scandinavian herding calls) and plucked strings to lure listeners into the underworld.

Play this album repeatedly, and you feel yourself willingly following Myrkur into the gloom. The apple doesn’t fall far from the darkening tree.

This month’s other picks

Sound of Yell, AKA Stevie Jones, has a brilliant new album, Leapling (Chemikal Underground), named after those unusual souls born on 29 February. With contributions from Alex Neilson and Alasdair Roberts, it is stuffed with thrilling, inventive tracks, combining folk instrumentation, woodwind, loose drums and ambient textures. Jones is fast becoming a Scottish Sufjan Stevens. Ex-Owl Service singer and psych-folk artist Diana Collier follows up All Mortals at Rest (2016) with Ode to Riddley Walker (Rif Mountain), an album of tremulous, powerful originals. Fans of Vashti Bunyan should quickly gather here. Seth Lakeman’s side hustle as a fiddler in Robert Plant’s brilliant current touring band also shows in the confidence of A Pilgrim’s Tale (Absolute), a spirited retelling of the story of the Mayflower.