Review by Felix on February 14, 2024.

It’s always nice when a formerly unknown band appears on the radar. This time Vananidr came into my metal fan life. They hail from Sweden and this alone almost works as a quality promise. Indeed, the self-titled debut from 2018 reflects an adequate maturity in view of the mostly coherent and well designed songs. Admittedly, the dudes play a kind of black metal which does not win the highest price for originality. Somehow they shy away from the extremes. They do not focus on utterly grimness, highest degrees of velocity or an insanely raw approach. Their style tends to seek consensus, medium-hard, medium-fast and equipped with an average level of meanness. This is not overly exciting and far from being spectacular, but the result is still okay.

The most original thing of “Vananidr”, sorry for that, is the fact that the tracklist lies. “Psalm till döden” was meant to be and listed as the outro, but in fact it is the pretty clerical, rather boring and overlong intro. Maybe I’ve been sold a bad pressing, anyway, this crude start does not make it easy to fall in love with the debut immediately. The real opener “Raging Blizzards” shows the true face of the band, inter alia because of its triumphant melody arcs, the angry high speed sections and the powerful double bass drum.

Not every song is a killer. Despite its strong beginning, “Frostbitten Kingdom” (no Immortal tribute, haha) does not have enough substance for its length of nearly seven minutes and the slow Candlemass-like lines of “Enter Eternity” indicate a facet that Vananidr do not really have. The instrumental in the middle of the album suffers from its strange production, the guitars sound like being recorded under water. But the overall result is more than solid, last but not least to the strong flow of the majority of the songs. This does not mean that they lack breaks, but they are cleverly integrated. The best one stops the high speed section of “Abomination of Evil” and turns this raging weapon into a highly atmospheric piece in a matter of seconds giving the song a torn appearance. By contrast, the compact “Rise” is a constantly fast-paced number and the nearly hidden beast of the album.

The production is a pretty normal one, it does not lack density or a slightly dark touch. It can therefore be said that there are no serious deficiencies neither creatively nor technically. “Vananidr” is no must have, but it whets the appetite to dive deeper into the band’s discography. I hope that one day I will know whether the follow-up "Road North" has more to offer than "just" an inspiring cover that does justice to the title.

Rating: 7.3 out of 10