### Borknagar: Universal

#### 08/06/10 || Altmer

Hello black metal, we are back. This band is obviously a set of Norwegian fuckos that play a sort of symphonic/progressive black metal of the first order – sounds a bit early Dimmu Borgir, that sort of thing. In fact since this band has been around quite a while so most sympho-metal bands probably sound somewhat like them. They had Garm in their lineup quite a while back, some dude from Enslaved played for them as well – basically it’s sort of an all-star band that plays somewhat more melodic black metal with a bunch of prog elements.

Yes, that means that this is pretentious metal. So if you like tr00 kvlt n3cro, you can stop reading this review RIGHT HERE and continue to the score. The rest of you should read on. Or maybe not, come to think of it. This album is not that fantastic. Bork Bork Bork Nagar are quite a unique entity though, and don’t really sound like any of the other sympho bands out there.

So what makes this different from any other black metal pretto band out there? Well, for one they have clean vocals. Slightly nasal, like most black metal bands somehow always employ. It reminds me a bit of Mastodon; actually, that can’t be a good thing as Mastodon’s clean vox are pretty bad. I also heard a flute on the third song “The Stir of Seasons”. They clearly like variety in their black metal – it is a concoction with a million things thrown in – but just taking a bunch of elements and throwing it into a melting pot doesn’t make you unique, or different, or original. There is an acoustic guitar here, some piano tinkling there, electronic things pop up sometimes – but even though it’s played well it’s not working for the songs. There is no reason to actually go and listen to this, even though they don’t really sound like somebody else.

These guys have got a few good songs going for them though: opener “Havoc” is exactly what I am looking for from a band like this and a gold star is awarded there. There are more moments of brilliance on this record – like on “For a thousand years to come” – but it seems like this band is stuck at a few moments of brilliance. Often they will veer into some useless proggy (read: instrumental wankery) section where they try hard to show off how unique they are, and those instrumental bits tend to be quite slow, boring, drudging material, which brings the album down quite a bit. When they rock it out, black metal style, they are fantastic though. More of that faster material would tip the balance in favour of this album.

Maybe I just don’t get it. Maybe this band is too intelligent for me. I even mostly like prog metal albums, particularly ones with a heavier tinge to it. But I get mostly bored with this stuff, and I just see no reason to return to this. They just haven’t got the overall strength in these tunes to make me a fan. I know this is probably supposed to be an album where you have to listen to it a few times to get it, and it will probably start to reveal itself later, but I don’t even feel like it could be any good if I gave it another spin. It just feels like boring, boring music that makes me fall asleep.

I’m going to go back to counting sheep now, because that is where this band puts my frame of mind. This album is extremely fucken tedious to listen to and I don’t really think I want another shot any time soon. I’ll keep it in case I return to it and find that it has grown on me, but I’m not expecting it and I don’t think anyone else should either. Excellent musicianship and mediocre songs make for a dull, dull listening experience and I don’t expect it to change, even with the nice black metal moments interspersed.

Recommendation: Stop thinking that being experimental and unique excuses you from good songwriting.

- Information
- Released: 2010
- Label: Indie Records
- Website: www.borknagar.com
- Band
- Andreas “Vintersorg” Hedlund: vocals
- Lars “Lazare” Nedland: keyboard, backing vocals
- Øystein G. Brun: guitars
- Jens F. Ryland: guitars
- David Kinkade: drums
- Jan Erik “Tyr” Tiwaz: bass

- Tracklist
- 01. Havoc
- 02. Reason
- 03. The Stir of Seasons
- 04. For a Thousand Years to Come
- 05. Abrasion Tide
- 06. Fleshflower
- 07. Worldwide
- 08. My Domain
- 09. Coalition of the Elements (bonus track)
- 10. Loci (bonus track)