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country: ICE
label: Prophecy Productions
Released at: November 3, 2023
format: LP
Condition: New
With their seventh full-length entitled "Narkissos", FORTÍÐ have finally delivered a masterpiece that should easily make it into the top part of those end of the year lists. The Icelandic trio has not even changed much, they are just doing everything even better than before. FORTÍÐ forge melodic riffing from black, death, thrash, and heavy metal threads into one sharp weapon. The Icelanders don't care about any particular genre, but focus entirely on writing excellent songs. As a result "Narkissos" features nine catchy and fiery metal anthems. FORTÍÐ determined the musical coordinates of their long journey with the ambitious "Völuspá" album trilogy, which was released from 2003 to 2010. Their early combination of harsh black and death metal riffing with a pinch of thrash and a penchant for epic melodies, versatile vocals as well as a heavy dose of "Icelandic sound" was continuously refined on the acclaimed "Pagan Prophecies" (2012) full-length and the following "9" (2015) album. With the dark and deadly "World Serpent" (2020), FORTÍÐ charted the current course that led via the two-track EP "Dómur um dauðan hvern" (2022) straight to "Narkissos". Lyrically, FORTÍÐ remain on an Old Norse and pagan course. Guðmundsson has woven a yarn in a Nordic context about a character with the so-called narcissistic personality disorder that runs as a red thread through "Narkissos". FORTÍÐ present a contemporary metal album that is both musically and lyrically taking the Icelanders to a new peak, and by firmly placing substance over style will find its audience.
With this dark and deadly duology, mastermind Einar Eldur Thorberg delivers an album of two parts: The first five tracks were recorded with the former Norwegian line-up. The other songs are a creation of the multi-instrumentalist after changing his residence back to Iceland and enlisting the support of drummer Kristján Einar Guðmundsson (KONTINUUM) with whom he had previously collaborated in the native cult act POTENTIAM.
"World Serpent" is loosely based on a unifying apocalyptic theme, but also a beast of two faces. The first half witnesses FORTIÐ subtly experimenting with influences of Bay Area Thrash, while the second half returns to a more black metal approach with screams and clean vocals. Although both parts have diverging musical visions and even different line-ups, they complement each other rather than constitute two separate entities.
Despite some subtle experimentation and drastic line-up changes, FORTIÐ are still following the course that Einar Eldur set on the "Völuspá"-trilogy of albums from 2003 to 2010 as well as the acclaimed "Pagan Prophecies" (2012) and "9" (2015) full-lengths: harsh black and death metal riffing with a penchant for epic melodies combined with versatile vocals and a dose of "Icelandic sound". With “World Serpent”, FORTIÐ have unleashed a dark and deadly creature onto the pagan metal world!