FORGJORD – perkeleen weri – CD

Black Metal – Werewolf Records

As such, it makes total sense for FORGJORD to strike back with inarguably their most-direct and least-tweaked album yet: Perkeleen Weri. The band’s seventh full-length, Perkeleen Weri is definitely – and immediately – recognizable as FORGJORD, maintaining mostly all those above characteristics and chiseled into new-yet-familiar shapes. However, the distinct difference here is that the band have dialed down the atmosphere for the sake of the almighty RIFF. Indeed, Perkeleen Weri is rife with riffs…riff after riff after riff after RIFF, all of them rough and rowdy and catchy and cantankerous. It’s a sonic / psychic move back to ancient times, primordial “regression” of a most ’80s manner (or, at the very least, the very early ’90s) that’s symbolic of both youth and older age. While nostalgic in essence, the burning-black flame here strides forward, ready to burn past, present, and future; suitably, the execution and especially recording feel almost clearheaded in context, or at least FORGJORD’s most crystalized attack yet. Melodicism abounds, of course, but there’s a murderous edge to Perkeleen Weri that’s never been this fully explored. Add to that palpitating attack a tasteful dose of organ and some chorus FX and you have a black metal record that’s simultaneously traditional and nuanced.

“Perkeleen Weri is an album which is dedicated to glory days of black metal,” explains founding guitarist / bassist Valgrinder, “when things were pure and albums were built more on guitar riffs and not just atmosphere, when songs themselves weren’t hidden behind hellish tempos or under huge production. Perkeleen Weri is a pure, naked, and shameless album, for both good and bad – nothing more, nothing less.”