ÄNTERBILA – Avart, CD

Deep in the Swedish hinterlands, Änterbila have forged “Avart” (‘Aberration’) – a blackened folk metal descent into the darker currents of national folklore. If their debut opened the door to a world of superstition, “Avart” strides further inside, told not from the perspective of the wandering listener but through the eyes of the adversary.

Here dwell the outcasts and the damned: the murderer fated long before the act, the smith whose forge burns with otherworldly fire, the troll king ruling unseen, the man cursed to live and die as the ulv. The stories are told without compromise, the music captured in stark immediacy – recorded with almost no retakes, shaped collectively yet still guided by the band’s founding vision.

The sound shifts between the unruly and the enchanted – riffs caked in grime, melodies veiled in the haze of old superstition. Echoes of Arckanum, Taake, and Panphage linger, yet Änterbila occupy a realm entirely their own. Violins, bagpipes, and spectral female vocals – courtesy of Thomas von Wachenfeldt, Halte Galten, and Malin Runefelt – weave bright threads through the darkness.

What emerges is both vicious and spectral – the clash of steel in a torchlit hall, the weight of unseen eyes in a twilight forest. “Avart” doesn’t merely tell its tales; it traps you within them.

Mixed by Lars Broddesson (ex-Marduk), mastered by Thomas von Wachenfeldt.

Tracklist (with translations):

1 - Låt till far (’Song for Father’)
2 - Ulven (’The Wolf’)
3 - Jordfäst (’Committed to the Earth’ – referring to a burial rite)
4 - Smeden (’The Smith’)
5 - Kniven (’The Knife’)
6 - Årsgång (’Year Walk’ – a Scandinavian ritual of divination)
7 - Konung (’King’)
8 - Eklundapolskan (’The Eklunda Polska’ – a traditional Swedish dance tune from Eklunda)