Danheim invites us to sit by the fire.
Signed to Season of Mist, Danish producer and multi-instrumentalist Reidar Schæfer Olsen‘s Viking/Nordic Folk project unveils its ninth album, Heimferd, in 2025.
With Heimferd, which features thirteen tracks totaling forty-three minutes, Reidar Schæfer Olsen transports us into his world of percussion, animal sounds, breaths, bowed strings, whispers, and warrior songs, but also a certain ritualistic coldness that takes us back to another time, when the men and women of the north gathered to commune with the spirits of nature. Each element is carefully designed to transport our minds to the sound of their intoxicating dances and ancestral rhythms marked and inhabited by different vocal parts, some of which are relatively frightening, as on the aptly named Heljar Skuggar. The sound can also convey a warlike atmosphere, as on J?tunsvärd, but it often remains dreamy, as on Brenhin Llwyd, Valvejen, the intriguing Vindfari, or the very gentle Yggdrasil II, with its English vocals, which closes the album, leaving us to our reveries and encouraging us to play the album again.
Although I am not used to listening to such albums outside of a live experience, Heimferd easily captivates, offering compositions with a strong identity that allow Danheim to accompany us in this moment of mental distraction.
75/100
