Folkstorm – Folksongs

Written by: Unaesthetic
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Label: Old Europa Cafe
Genre: Industrial

Tracklisting:

01 Say No
02 Vermin
03 No Need To Control
04 Smuts
05 Vermin Funeral / Lonely Is The Grave
06 I Gave You Life
07 Lifeline
08 Charlie’s Song
09 One
10 War Of A World
11 Intifada

Henrik Nordvargr Björkk is one of the true powerhouses of industrial music. I’ve lost count of the number of different projects he’s lent his name to and quite how many releases he’s put out. And he has an almost annoyingly high hit-rate for pure quality in whatever aspect of the Industrial underground he’s turning his hand to.

I’ve always mentally filed Folkstorm as HNB’s harsher, noisier work, less interested in atmosphere or rhythm, more concerned with the aggressive expulsion of brute force, take-no-prisoners Death Industrial. MZ.412 had the Satanic side, Nordvargr had the intensity, but nothing quite came close to Folkstorm for giving your ears a battering. There’s also always been the martial or militaristic tone to Folkstorm too, adding another level of implied aggression over and above the sound itself.

All that being said, “Folksongs” comes as quite a surprise. Pulling the old “the same but different” trick, HNB takes Folkstorm to the same place but using different means. This is still a tough, distorted, uncompromising record. But a clear progression has taken place, different ammunition is fired, and I have to say that I like it.

Half of “Folksongs” feels almost exactly like Folkstorm of old – HNB’s gruff, distorted, vocal bark and the layers of encrusted noise and distortion provide the punch we’re used to. But other elements are new and different – opener “Say No” may open with martial brass sounds but the rest of the track is a pummeling from a drum machine set to electro. These lo-fi beats continue into the slower “Vermin” which reminds me an awful lot of Haus Arafna, built as it is of roared PE vocals over sawtoothed analogue squalls and synthy drum sounds. Indeed the Arafna comparison is good for a lot of this album – the theremin in a meat-grinder backing of “No Need To Control”, the spoken word over air-blast synthesized snare drums of “I Gave You Life”, the almost-groovy rhythm of “One”.

There is a harsher, more free-form side to “Folksongs” too. All of the tracks mentioned above are bathed in distortion and noise. Then there are tracks like “Vermin Funeral / Lonely Is The Grave” and “Lifeline”. The former is a grating, shuddering analogue almost-drone, somewhere between a struggling engine and body parts being fed into a tree mulcher. “Lifeline” has more obvious form to it, but that doesn’t stop an atmosphere of doom pervading with a laconic invocation backed by a juddering bass rhythm and whining and screeching mechanical interruptions. “War of A World” sounds to me like the Folkstorm of old, a machine rhythm and a grind of bassy noise.

In all this is an interesting turn for Nordvargr to take; it’s clearly a continuation of what he’s been doing with Folkstorm over the years but using a different sound palette to achieve similar ends. Just as he surprised me with the minimalist glitchy electronica on Nordvargr’s “Evolution”, the synthy drumbeats on a few of these tracks caught me unawares on the first listen. Certainly a must for fans of Nordvargr’s output and recommended to anyone else too.

4.5/5