Urd

This is the ninth album by the Norwegian band Oystein G. Brun leads, released on 26 March 2012. It is the first on which Simen "ICS Vortex" Hestnaes and Andreas "Vintersorg" Hedlund share the lead vocal, and the last with drummer David Kinkade, who joined Soulfly once the sessions were finished and then left music altogether. The title comes from Urd, the norn of the past in Norse myth. Brun treats her as an old way of naming something science found much later and talks about the name as a metaphor for DNA, saying he has always been struck by the fact that every living thing is connected back to the first organic cell. With the previous album called Universal, he has said it felt natural to come back down to earth, and the cover, which recalls old Norwegian wood carving, follows the same thought. Brun describes the record as progressive in approach and retrospective in spirit. The black metal speed is still there, but the two singers' thick harmonies and the acoustic guitars take up much more room, and on "The Beauty of Dead Cities" and "In a Deeper World" the effect is close to choral. The order here is the European pressing's nine songs; the American and deluxe editions add a cover of Metallica's "My Friend of Misery" for ten, and the limited edition carries eleven.