Myrkur

To be honest you could write down everything I know about Black Metal on the back of a postage stamp whilst using a thick felt-tip marker and still see plenty of white space...

While I was 'researching' - aka 'Google is your friend' - Ex Cops and their quite brilliant album "Daggers" I came across reviews linking Amalie Bruun with a Black Metal album by the artist Myrkur. With Amalie and Myrkur being one and the same, apparently her provenance caused a bit of a shit-storm and backlash within the Black Metal community, to such a degree that Ex Cops' somewhat less than complimentary "Pretty Shitty" was written about the whole experience...

Frankly I'm not sure why there should have been such a reaction. From interviews Amalie confesses to being a fan of Black Metal and while I may not know a lot about Black Metal, I do know that she posses the most magical of voices.

I also tend to let my ears make up their own mind (or as George Michael once said, "Listen Without Prejudice").

To be truthfully even though I don't understand a word being sung here (and I'm guessing Danish, although I could be wrong), but this album is a glorious fusion of pounding percussion, absolutely manic, distorted and deeply resonant guitar thrashing (aka 'noise') that is counterpoised by the most angelic - at times choral - of voices. Like a number of her Scandinavian contemporaries (Nina Persson, Lykke li and Highasakite's Ingrid Helene Håvik - to name but three), the crystalline clarity and dynamic range of Amalie's vocals are truly frightening.

The album opens with "Ravnens banner" and a heavenly multi-tracked chorus of choral chants - that seemingly resonate as if echoing off of the walls of some imposing Dark Ages Cathedral - before a crashing wall of guitar and percussion abruptly invades this serenity. It's as if a malevolent storm of unimaginable destructiveness threatens to shatter the tranquillity. It's a theme that is repeated with devastating effect on both "Nattens barn" and "Latvian fegurö" - there's just the most harmonious choir of voices, before once again a tsunami of seemingly never ending manic, piercing guitar and drums crashes overhead and engulfs everything in its path, however on the latter I love the way that the vocals duel with and ultimately subdue the violent storm. 

But there's more to this album than just harmonious vocals fighting with a crescendo of heavy and menacing (but strangely melodious) rock. I wouldn't be surprised if I were told that "Frosne vind" was actually a Renaissance score - think "Greensleeves" - originally composed sometime in the 16th Century. I'd actually argue that "Dybt i Skoven" is just a great alt-rock song; There's something totally ethereal in the way the vocals magically float above the seething cauldron of reverbed guitars and crashing percussion.

As I've alluded to, I'm not really that au-fait with Black Metal, but if this album is a example of the genre - which I'd always imagined to be angry, raw, Testosterone fueled - above all discordant - then it is actually unbelievably and strangely beautiful...

Myrkur (Bandcamp), (iTunes)
Myrkur Webpage (Relapse Records)