Mar 222024
 

(Didrik Mešiček wrote the following review of a new album by the Faroese band Hamferð, which is being released today by Metal Blade Records.)

The Faroe Islands, a harsh archipelago, technically belonging to Denmark, with a population of roughly 54k people has 14 bands listed on Metal Archives. Ten of those are active and one of those is Hamferð, which is the band whose new release, Men Guðs hond er sterk, I’ll be covering in this article. The band has been around since 2008 and won the Wacken Metal Battle competition in 2012, after which they’ve released two full-length albums, with this being their third, which will come out on March 22nd on Metal Blade Records.

I can’t say I’ve been overly familiar with this band before and mostly only knew them by name, but what really drew me to this record immediately was the title. Men Guðs hond er sterk or, in English, “but God’s hand is strong”, is for some reason one of those phrases that automatically make me very intrigued, as it’s filled with promise and romance.

If we take into account the harshness of the Faroes, the phrase is so much more impactful, as life on the islands can truly be rough and, from what I’ve seen and been told, it truly feels as if you’re at the mercy of some sort of a god and its whims, whether on land or in a fishing boat not far off shore, a lesson captured in the tragic 1915 whaling event that inspired the record. Continue reading »

Mar 222024
 

(Today Metal Blade is releasing a new album from the Faroe Islands-based death/doom band Hamferð, and to help celebrate the event we’re sharing Comrade Aleks‘ recent interview with Hamferð guitarist Theodor Kapnas.)

Wow! Time flies by! It seems that the last interview we did with Hamferð here happened in 2014. Back then we discussed with the band’s vocalist Jón Aldará the debut album Evst, but I believe there was another interview a few years later, though my memory sometimes fails me. However, it’s March 2024, and Hamferð’s third full-length work Men Guðs hond er sterk is ready to be released on March 22nd.

Metal Blade Records presented two new tracks “Ábær” and “Hvølja” recently, and the album promises to be another gorgeous monument of epic Nordic death-doom, with Faroese lyrics of course. The band’s sound evolved a bit as far as it could be heard, but there’s always something worth talking about with such a man as Theodor Kapnas, Hamferð’s guitarist. Continue reading »

Jan 082018
 

 

In an effort to catch up with new music that appeared last week (or in some cases that I only discovered last week), I’ve resorted to a two-part OVERFLOWING STREAMS post. And for those who haven’t noticed the format of these posts, they’re a form of personal surrender to the flood of new music. I enjoy writing thoughts about what I want to recommend, but in posts such as this one I just let the music speak for itself because there’s so much to recommend that I don’t have time to blurt out my own reactions.

In Part 1 (here), I collected some newly discovered splits. This one is devoted mainly to new advance tracks, some of which just premiered today, with a few full-album or EP streams in the mix. Continue reading »

Oct 222016
 

clouds-departe

 

Greetings brethren and sistren on this beautiful Saturday. At least it’s beautiful where I am, deep in the heart of Texas, where I’ve been visiting family members the last couple of days. In fact, it’s such a beautiful morning that I felt compelled to ugly it up with new metal. I found some good ways to do that, which you will hear below, and I found one other surprise, too.

But before we get to music that will bruise the day, I’m beginning this collection with something that’s as beautiful in its own way as this morning. And before I get to THAT song, I’ll leave you with YouTube links to some new music and videos that appeared just yesterday from the following bands, though I’m not writing about them here: Hail Spirit Noir; Madder Mortem; and Dark Tranquillity. I’ll also embed the videos at the end of this post if you’d rather not leave our humble site to hear and see them.

CLOUDS

I thank Grant Skelton for alerting me to this first song, which appeared about five days ago. Its name is “How Can I Be There” and it’s from Departe, the second album by the band Clouds. Continue reading »

Mar 212015
 

 

I’m about to enter the home stretch of the out-of-town project for my paying job that has been severely constricting my blog time. Four or five more days, and I’ll be done. Those remaining days are going to leave me with even less time to blog than I’ve had since the project started three weeks ago, so this morning I decided to carve out some time for one last round-up of new music before running the final gauntlet.

ZATOKREV

I discovered the Swiss band Zatokrev through their 2012 album The Bat, the Wheel and a Long Road to Nowhere, which turned out to be one of my favorite albums of that year. Their fourth album, Silk Spiders Underwater… is now finished and scheduled for released on April 13 by Candlelight Records. It is reported to be the first of a two-part conception and features artwork by Maks Loriot. Continue reading »

Jun 062014
 

(Our Russian contributor Comrade Aleks returns with another interview — and if you haven’t yet discovered the wonders of Hamferð, this is a good time to get on board.)

After Hamferð’s debut album Vilst er Síðsta Fet succeeded in attracting a lot of attention to the band, their first full-length work Evst aroused even more serious interest in this bunch of talented dudes from the Faroe Islands. In addition to the attraction of the band’s exotic location, Hamferð play strong and dramatic doom/death with a real artistic touch and lyrics written in their native language. So, this interview with Jón Aldará (vocals) is a good opportunity not only to refresh your geography knowledge but also to discover legends of the Faroe Islands and a bloody good doom band.

Thanks to Frodi Stenberg of Factory92 for helping organize this interview.

*******

Ahoy ship-mates! What is the latest news from the band?

Greetings from the wind-battered mountains of the Faroe Islands. We have just returned from a successful first gig in Norway at the Inferno Festival, and our next endeavor is an exclusive acoustic concert/poetry evening in my hometown of Klaksvík this weekend. It will be something special indeed. Continue reading »

Oct 022013
 

I ran roughshod through the interhole yesterday and this morning, and it seemed like around every corner was new music worth sharing. Even more good tunes were lurking in the NCS e-mail inbox. So, I’ve divided what I found into two posts, this one being the first.

HAMFERÐ

I first came across Hamferð in August 2012 because they were the first band from the Faroe Islands (population: 49,000) to enter the globe-spanning Wacken Metal Battle competition — and they won the whole thing, earning the right to play at the Wacken festival on August 6 of last year. That remarkable story is what snagged my interest, and listening to their 2010 EP Vilst er Síðsta Fet made me a fan (for more details about their story and a review of that EP, go here).

Hamferð have now finished their debut album Evst, and a couple of hours ago they announced that it will be released on October 11 in The Faroe Islands and November 15 in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland (it will also be released digitally worldwide on the same day). It will be a concept album and appears to be a continuation of ideas developed on the EP. Once again, the lyrics will be in Faroese (the band’s name is a Faroese term for the apparitions of sailors appearing before their loved ones).

Interestingly, although winning Wacken Metal Battle gave Hamferð the option for a label contract with Nuclear Blast, they turned it down “to be able to continue their work without unwanted influences”. Continue reading »

Sep 032013
 

This is a round-up of new songs and videos that debuted over the last 24 hours. There is a unifying theme to what I’ve selected: Although the styles of metal range from rampaging black metal to the sublime weight of doom, darkness pervades the sounds.

NECROPHOBIC

Only yesterday we posted Part 1 of Andy Synn’s review of the recently completed SUMMER BREEZE festival in Germany. It included words of praise for the live performance by Sweden’s Necrophobic. And today brought us the North American premiere of the first single from this influential band’s new album Womb of Lilithu, their seventh studio album and the first one in four years.

The new track is “Splendour Nigri Solis” and it’s now streaming at Spotify (here), though because it debuted in Europe earlier, it has also made its way to YouTube. It’s a thumping, thrashing, swirling whirlwind of black metal vehemence (with imperious, cleanly-sung, off-tempo sections that are as cool as the speedy parts). Continue reading »

Aug 122012
 

The United States has always been run by a plutocracy whose power has rarely been challenged in any meaningful way, regardless of which political party happens to be in office. For complex reasons, class warfare has just never really been a serious factor in the civic and political life of the U.S. The big dogs gobble up an ever-increasing share of the pie, and most people don’t ever seem bothered enough by it to rise up politically and demand that their own interests be put first. But as a people, strangely enough, we do like to root for the underdog, and we tend to cheer when the underdog wins. I’m no exception . . . and hence, this story.

Wacken Metal Battle is a globe-spanning competition designed to showcase up-and-coming bands in the world of metal, and this year it celebrated its 10th anniversary. National competitions are now held in 33 countries, with the winner of each national competition journeying to Germany to perform on the first day of the Wacken Open Air festival, playing for all the marbles. And it’s a big bag of marbles, too. Apart from the thrill of getting to play at the world’s biggest metal fest, the winner this year was to receive a world-wide record deal with Nuclear Blast and a shitload of other prizes, such as a Marshall Full-Stack, Washburn guitars, and Paise Boomer cymbals (the whole list of prizes can be seen at this page).

For the first time in 2012, the Faroe Islands joined the Metal Battle competition. The Faroe Islands are a country consisting of 18 mountainous islands located in the North Atlantic between Iceland and the rest of Scandinavia. The total population is about 49,000, with nearly half the people living in the capital region of Tórshavn. They are the descendants of Vikings (and Irish), they have their own language, and they have metal (as those of you who know bands such as Týr, The Apocryphal Order, or SiC are well aware).

This year, eight bands competed in the Faroese national Metal Battle event, and the winner was a band named HamferðHamferð made the trip to Germany and took the Wacken W.E.T. stage on August 6 to throw down against bands from throughout Europe, plus countries as far away as China, Japan, Russia, Mexico, and Brazil. And guess who won the whole thing, as their nation’s first-ever competitor in Wacken Metal Battle? That’s right — Hamferð did. Continue reading »