Skuggsjá

Fans of Einar Selvik’s project Wardruna will welcome this opportunity to get their hands on Skuggsjá, an album originally released in 2016 but now reissued, in various formats, featuring new artwork with full lyrics and translations. The album has its origins in a 2014 collaboration between Selvik and Ivar Bjørnson. Selvik (formerly of Norwegian black metal band Gorgoroth, and now the driving force of Wardruna) and Bjørnson (the guitarist with Viking metal band Enslaved) were commissioned to produce a concert piece, arranged to be performed by Enslaved and Wardruna, to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Norwegian constitution.

In some ways, the result musically foreshadows Wardruna’s 2021 Kvitravn – tracks often build slowly from quiet, atmospheric beginnings into expansive, incantatory epics. Bookended by an ‘Intro’ and ‘Outro’, Skuggsjá blends together dramatic vocals, old instrumentation (taglharpa, kravik-lyre, goat horn) and new (electric guitar, bass and keyboards). If you’re not keen on ‘death growling’ vocals avoid track three, but you wouldn’t want to miss Bjørnson’s guitar riffs, which are terrific in every sense.