Ur Jordens Djup

Finntroll’s sixth studio album arrives with much of the band’s familiar machinery intact: rasped vocals, charging guitars, bouncing folk melodies and the unmistakable sense that a woodland procession has gone violently wrong. Yet Ur Jordens Djup is less immediate than the group’s most celebrated work. Its production is heavier and murkier, while the arrangements often favour atmosphere over the sharp, compact hooks that made earlier records so effective.

Finntroll sound most convincing here when menace and melody stop competing and begin reinforcing each other.

The opening sequence establishes that darker character well. “Gryning” works as a suitably ominous entrance, and “Sång” follows with the sort of stomping momentum Finntroll can summon almost effortlessly. “Korpens Saga” and “Nedgång” continue the blend of blackened riffing and humppa-derived rhythm, but the album’s middle section begins to expose its main weakness: several songs circle around similar textures without delivering a truly decisive refrain.

That does not make the record dull. The keyboards remain important without becoming decorative, and the rhythm section keeps the material moving even when the guitar writing settles into repetition. “Slagbröder” and “En Mäktig Här” are particularly effective because they balance weight with a stronger sense of forward motion. “Ormhäxan” is another highlight, using a more sinister melodic contour rather than relying solely on festival-ready bounce.

At nearly fifty-six minutes, however, Ur Jordens Djup feels longer than its ideas justify. The closing stretch has atmosphere, but not enough contrast, and the album lacks the concentrated mischief of Jaktens Tid or the sharper attack of Nattfödd. This is still recognisably Finntroll and still contains several excellent passages, yet it functions better as a deep, shadowy expansion of the formula than as its definitive expression. A respectable record, but not the place to begin.