BORKNAGAR-Winter Thrice

Century Media Records

What better time to listen to Borknagar’s tenth album ‘Winter Thrice’ than with temperatures far below zero and a winter landscape when looking out of the window. Founder/guitarist Øystein G. Brun manages to capture everything Borknagar stands for on this album. Brun’s concern about the Norwegian nature and landscape is what this album is all about. Opening track ,,The Rhymes Of The Mountain’’ shows a perfect combination of progressive folk combined with black metal and clean vocals mixed with screams. The title track contains beautiful clean vocals again combined with black metal screams framed in atmospheric folky metal. ,,Panorama’’ is the odd one out with weird progressive rhythms and funny keyboard solo but dreamy harmonies. The fact Borknagar keeps varying the typical black metal screams with the clean vocals makes it an interesting listen. The crisp but not too perfect production ensures the listener’s attention. The most atmospheric song is ,,Noctilucent’’ with its beautiful dreamy harmonies, a nice guitar solo and lots of keyboards which meander to the end before ,,Terminus’’ closes the album in brutal black metal style on which original Borknagar singer Garm, like on the track ,,Winter Thrice’’, lends his vocal help. ‘Winter Thrice’ is a worthy follow up to 2012’s ‘Urd’.