(Below you will find Daniel Barkasi’s review of a new album by the Icelandic band Mannveira which is being released today on Dark Descent Records.)
Black metal contains a tendency, if not a foundational principle, to push the envelope in several facets. Recent times have shown the style to be malleable to all sorts of sonic avenues, a fair number of which have been extremely esteemed in the quality department. It’s of no surprise that – again – we land upon an Icelandic act who is doing that in its own volatile and entirely specific manner.
Mannveira is the subject at hand, and we certainly weren’t expecting a new record in the late embers of this year. However, here we are with Vesöld, the follow-up to the chilling Vítahringur – a work that impressed mightily via its psychedelic tones and obscure atmosphere. It wasn’t clear as to when new music might arrive from this collective, so the announcement of this release was a pleasant surprise indeed.
Quite a cast in the band’s makeup, with Vesöld featuring Altari‘s Óskar Þór Guðjónsson, Forsmán‘s Oddur Blöndal (check our their album from earlier this year), Kviðrista’s Illugi Kristinsson, Naðra‘s Hilmar Gylfi Guðjónsson, and Örlygur Sigurðarson, whose credits include 0 and the aforementioned Naðra. In short, a hell of a group with a wealth of differing musical endeavors in their history, returning to present what is Mannveira’s second LP — a piece that doesn’t stray far from the first, but conversely travels a multitude of freshly compelling paths.
