Taake - Doedskvad

Ulvhedin Høst - Vocals, Guitars
Mord - Drums
Lava - Bass

First things first, Taake is pronounced something like “Toke” but with a short “O”. I just need to add that since I keep thinking it as “Tarkee” for some reason. Anyway, this band's third album, and supposedly the conclusion of a trilogy, is somewhat excellent. The debut 'Nattestid' was a harsh, violent pure black album with plenty of Darkthrone influence, while the second 'Bjoergvin' cleaned up the sound and introduced a much more technical sound. 'Doedskvad' takes a step back from the complexity while retaining the clear, precise sound and adding an extra dose of folkish, black rock'n'roll swagger. Not to mention the songs (untitled as usual) are a fair bit longer here, so the album gives itself plenty of time to build upon its basic framework.

Starting with a harsh cry of “Helnorsk Svartmetal!”, track 1 launches into a blazing, swirling traditional blackened assault before quickly swinging into the aforementioned swagger, infused with a very obvious Norwegian folk-music influence. This influence pops up a hell of a lot throughout, especially on part 6, which uses a lot of melodies which seem to have been half-inched from the same folksongs used on Storm's classic 'Nordavind' disc.

It's really quite tricky to describe this, or even compare it to anything. Taake projects a mystical feeling which transcends verbal comparison. While the basic elements are extremely typical – fast melodic black metal, folk music and a bit of rock'n'roll punkish aggression thrown in for good measure – they manage to make these things amount to far more than the sum of their parts. This is an album which demands to be listened to attentively to pick up on the subtleties of it's musical depth, far from being a noisy cacophony recorded on a 4-track in a basement like a lot of uptight wankers write black metal off as being. Put quite bluntly, this fucking rocks, and in the end, that's as great an accolade as I can award to anything.

October 13th, 2005