“Hvølja,” the chest-caving new single from Faroe Islands-based death/doom practitioners HAMFERÐ is now streaming alongside an accompanying video. The punishing new hymn appears on the band’s Men Guðs Hond Er Sterk full-length, set for release on March 22nd through Metal Blade Records.
When this magisterial sextet’s third album Támsins likam emerged in 2018 – ten years after they first entered a rehearsal space – the highly acclaimed and powerfully emotive opus thrust the mourning-suited band onto the world stage. Louder Sound crowned the record, “a stunning triumph,” Heavy Music HQ concurred lauding a, “tour de force for the band,” while Nine Circles observed, “HAMFERÐ taps into a rich cultural vein to draw influence for their lyrical and musical themes, yet the filtering of this through the lens of death/doom makes for a unique approach to folk-themed metal, and one that is hugely successful in its application.”
Six years on, the accumulation of plentiful live experience and interpersonal chemistry has had a profound impact on HAMFERБs extraordinary fourth LP, Men Guðs Hond Er Sterk, feeding into the artisanal sonic vision of guitarist and producer, Theodor Kapnas.
Concertedly eschewing all the quick-fix trickery of modern recording technology, the band recorded the songs together live in the studio, without a click-track. The result is a resoundingly human album that heaves, swoops, and shifts in elemental style – from passages of glacial post-metallic beauty through sorrowful folky goth cadences, via icy blackened blastbeats to shuddering vistas of extreme doom mastery – with a crackling tight-but-loose interplay recalling the giants of yesteryear.
In addition to the old-school recording set-up, guitarist and producer Theodor Kapnas’ vision for the sound is best exemplified by penultimate song and latest single, “Hvølja” (Whaleskin), a sluggish sludge crawl with a beautifully disgusting tone. “I had a big fascination with making stuff rougher, dirtier and uglier,” affirms Kapnas. “Musically it’s all about tension; suspended chords and tense harmonies, always having that feeling of uncertainty. That song is maybe my favorite track on the record, just because it’s so uncompromising. Everything goes to 11.
“‘Hvølja’ is also the darkest and ugliest song we have written to date,” he continues. “It is a sonic and lyrical representation of the world being violently ripped apart by monstrous currents and consumed by a black sky above.”
Watch HAMFERБs previously released video for “Ábær” at THIS LOCATION.
The narrative concept behind Men Guðs Hond Er Sterk is inspired by the 1915 whaling disaster off the Faroe Island village of Sandvik (home of HAMFERÐ keyboardist Esmar Joensen), when fourteen men died driving whales ashore in the stormy bay. The village population witnessed the tragedy from the seaside.
The sad tale has enabled HAMFERÐ to powerfully bring to life the meaning behind their Faroese name, zeroing in on the traumatic emotional force behind this supernatural phenomenon. “When you see someone in hamferð, you see their apparition,” Kapnas explains. “Mostly it’s wives with husbands at sea, who’ve seen them dripping wet in the doorframe in the middle of the night. Typically, in folklore it’s a warning that something bad will happen, and there are several documented episodes of this happening in Sandvik in 1915. So it’s kind of full circle for us.“
Find pre-orders at: metalblade.com/hamferd
HAMFERÐ:
Jón Aldará – vocals
Theodor Kapnas – guitars
Eyðun í Geil Hvannastein – guitars
Esmar Joensen – keyboards
Remi Kofoed Johannesen – drums
Jenus í Trøðini – bass
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