Ferndal - Singularitäten
These Germans’ quest began in 2017. With the single "In die Freiheit", Ferndal presented the band’s offering on melodic black metal, with the addition of a not very predictable instrument, when it comes to the dark realms of black metal: the cello. Drinking from their motherland’s folk tradition and fusing it with black metal structure, adding the violin, Ferndal have shaped a very pleasant hybrid.
This album came a bit as a breath of fresh air, one of those records you do not imagine yourself enjoying, considering what you normally listen to… but guess what? You do enjoy it and you end up really letting it sink in and it starts taking you places, mentally, and you sum it up into two word: marvellous surprise.
It incorporates elements, structures and musical lines – soothing melodies - that you did not believe you could still appreciate after all these years of destruction and blasphemy. The gentle melodies that are brought forward by the cello, are tremendous. The role it plays really gives the overall album a true lift, one can hear the cello leading the song alongside with the drums. Those are, in my opinion, the real heros of the album! You feel that there are, never, voids in the songs, as there is always the Cello.
The albums flows remarkably well in its entirety. It has no filler. It has no moment of weakness and the rendition of 'Mother North' – already a piece of black metal art – does not act as a brake or a sign of fading. Dissecting it into songs, analizing each song as independent entities, does not feel as the best way to present the album to those that still had not have the opportunity to give it a go, in my opinion. It works as a whole, as ONE piece of music.
It takes you to the top of the mountain, it leads you through the valleys and over the rivers, it prepares you to battle in a fantasy world far far away! Music has this gift: it can take you to mental stages you did not imagine you could even go to. Greatly striking, I must say.
The vocals are very vibrant, and using their native tongue gives the songs an even more epic weight, a warrior feel to it. They resonate as the narrator enlightening the main actors of this massive epic adventure, of the dangers they are about to face if they decide to embark in this fantastic quest. Still, it does not sound as some childish black metal act, as many others. No! this is a solid and fierce group of individuals that, through their music, paint images of mountains and rivers and valleys filled with fantasy and battles. Windir are pointed as the main influence behind Ferndal. In fact, the usage of non recurrent black metal instruments, so attached to their country’s folklore, might point you in that direction. By al means, being compared to a band as Windir will never be seen as a negative thing, I guess, but I hear so much in this band that, while comparing it to band A or B, might steal some of the credit that they do have in creating something so notable.
Forsaken lands, dried out gorges, rotten bodies of animals dispersed over the lands! This is the image I paint in my mind when I close my eyes and dwell into Ferndal's music. It might sound a bit to… Tolkienish, I assume, and it may sound strange, given the description I gave of their music, previously, but the deepness I get from this collection of sounds does not resemble a green prairie, but a death dead land…
Beautiful, yet dark. Melodic, yet antagonistically remarkable. A hybrid.
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This album came a bit as a breath of fresh air, one of those records you do not imagine yourself enjoying, considering what you normally listen to… but guess what? You do enjoy it and you end up really letting it sink in and it starts taking you places, mentally, and you sum it up into two word: marvellous surprise.
It incorporates elements, structures and musical lines – soothing melodies - that you did not believe you could still appreciate after all these years of destruction and blasphemy. The gentle melodies that are brought forward by the cello, are tremendous. The role it plays really gives the overall album a true lift, one can hear the cello leading the song alongside with the drums. Those are, in my opinion, the real heros of the album! You feel that there are, never, voids in the songs, as there is always the Cello.
The albums flows remarkably well in its entirety. It has no filler. It has no moment of weakness and the rendition of 'Mother North' – already a piece of black metal art – does not act as a brake or a sign of fading. Dissecting it into songs, analizing each song as independent entities, does not feel as the best way to present the album to those that still had not have the opportunity to give it a go, in my opinion. It works as a whole, as ONE piece of music.
It takes you to the top of the mountain, it leads you through the valleys and over the rivers, it prepares you to battle in a fantasy world far far away! Music has this gift: it can take you to mental stages you did not imagine you could even go to. Greatly striking, I must say.
The vocals are very vibrant, and using their native tongue gives the songs an even more epic weight, a warrior feel to it. They resonate as the narrator enlightening the main actors of this massive epic adventure, of the dangers they are about to face if they decide to embark in this fantastic quest. Still, it does not sound as some childish black metal act, as many others. No! this is a solid and fierce group of individuals that, through their music, paint images of mountains and rivers and valleys filled with fantasy and battles. Windir are pointed as the main influence behind Ferndal. In fact, the usage of non recurrent black metal instruments, so attached to their country’s folklore, might point you in that direction. By al means, being compared to a band as Windir will never be seen as a negative thing, I guess, but I hear so much in this band that, while comparing it to band A or B, might steal some of the credit that they do have in creating something so notable.
Forsaken lands, dried out gorges, rotten bodies of animals dispersed over the lands! This is the image I paint in my mind when I close my eyes and dwell into Ferndal's music. It might sound a bit to… Tolkienish, I assume, and it may sound strange, given the description I gave of their music, previously, but the deepness I get from this collection of sounds does not resemble a green prairie, but a death dead land…
Beautiful, yet dark. Melodic, yet antagonistically remarkable. A hybrid.
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1. Intro
2. Weltenbrände
3. Bringer Der Leere
4. Klavierquintett In E-Moll (Mother North)
5. Zerbrechen
6. Die Verlorenen
7. Siebter Gesang
8. Serenade
9. Distanz
2. Weltenbrände
3. Bringer Der Leere
4. Klavierquintett In E-Moll (Mother North)
5. Zerbrechen
6. Die Verlorenen
7. Siebter Gesang
8. Serenade
9. Distanz
