FORGJORD
Ruumissaarna pt. 1 (Black Vinyl)

All copies on black vinyl.

Hailing from the forever-thriving Finnish black metal underground, FÖRGJORD is one of that scene's stranger and more unique entities. Existing since the mid '90s, the trio have largely shied away from the spotlight - even when that spotlight is blacklit and dim - and patiently parcel out their releases, with a sparse-yet-solid discography to date. Sielunvihollinen - their second album, released to critical acclaim in 2012 - furthered the idiosyncratic FÖRGJORD aesthetic, but now with Uhripuu, they've triumphed yet again with a scabrous 'n' unorthodox journey into black metal's most rotten depths. But for however maldorous their melodicism is, it is precisely that - meldodicism - which makes FÖRGJORD so bewitching, the way oddly hummable passages push past the ripped-raw soundfield and create a wild, entrancing disconnect. It is this aspect which fondly reminds of France's Black Legions, the eternal struggle between trance and trash, but naturally, a distinctly Finnish air of melancholy permeates the mildewed black metal at hand.

For years one of Finnish black metal's best-kept secrets, in recent times have FORGJORD sprung to prominence among the adventurous as practitioners of a strangely alluring sort of obsidian. Although existing since the mid '90s and patiently parceling out their recordings in an almost-clandestine manner, the upswing in activity began with FORGJORD's third album (and first with WEREWOLF), Uhripuu, in 2017 and was followed by the equally challenging Ilmestykset in 2019, the comparatively more rockin' Laulu kuolemasta a year later, and the draw-everything together Ruumissaarna Pt. 1 in 2022. Among those four full-lengths, the Finnish trio solidified and strengthened their strident aesthetic - malodorous melodicism, hypnotically rendered through a ripped-raw soundfield, making their strangely hummable ruminations on triumph & tragedy sound all the more alien, each album unified yet unique within that aesthetic - and made it all seem effortless. Finally, it seemed that the name FORGJORD was no longer a "secret."