Windir - Likferd (2003)

The fourth and final Windir record is the darkest. Not simply because I associate it with the untimely passing of its main protagonist Valfar in the year following its released (in a fucking blizzard of all things), but because it's got this more suffocating extremity about it. As I mentioned with 1184, rather than going more accessible with the winning formula of melodic clarity and folkish multi-instrumentation, Valfar and his shipmates moved off into a more aggressive direction, seeking to embrace the black metal fundamentals rather than shun them. Likferd goes even harder than the last album, and with the increasingly savage vocals and sheer velocity of the riffs and drumming.

That's not to say you don't get some variation, some brilliant moments of pause like the dark synthscape that punctuates "Resurrection of the Wild" or the bass-driven grooves of "Blodssvik" which sounds more like a Gothic rock song until those familiar melodies surge forward. But overall, Likferd is content to hammer away at your corporal body and then let the melodies and awesome male choir vocals carry you off into Valhalla. Despite the kinetic, melodic glaze found in tracks like "Martyrium" or "On the Mountain of Goats", they thrive off the strength of the riffing and sheer force. And there is riffing aplenty, with Valfar trying a whole array of new patterns that pull from thrash or melodic death metal but then plant them directly into the Viking furor. There are windows of proggy sounds and structures also placed throughout the 48 minute visceral structure of this experience, and one wonders if they had continued they might have pursued paths more akin to how Enslaved was already evolving at that very moment.

The mix still isn't my favorite, it's very steady but also kind of got a murk to it despite all the melodic strivings. That said, I think the drums sound a lot better than the last record, or at least the kicks and snares aren't distracting me throughout the experience as much, so I can better appreciate everything else that's happening. A worthwhile swansong for Windir. It's absolute rubbish that we lost such an obviously talented and visionary musician as Terje Bakken at such a young age, as many others have said before me. I can't imagine he would have disappointed us if we'd gotten 20+ more years of music from his atavist mind. I don't approach this one as often as Arntor or 1184, but it's rich enough with ideas both familiar and new that it's just a hair's breadth behind them in quality.

Verdict: Win [8.75/10]