Today, Finnish black metallers Förgjord reveal the new video “Käärmeenkieli.” The track is the first to be revealed from the band’s highly anticipated seventh album, Perkeleen Weri, which should see release via Werewolf Records during the second half of 2024. See & hear Förgjord‘s “Käärmeenkieli” video in its entirety here:
For years one of Finnish black metal’s best-kept secrets, in recent times have Förgjord sprung to prominence among the adventurous as practitioners of a strangely alluring sort of obsidian. Although existing since the mid ’90s and patiently parceling out their recordings in an almost-clandestine manner, the upswing in activity began with Förgjord‘s third album (and first with Werewolf), Uhripuu, in 2017 and was followed by the equally challenging Ilmestykset in 2019, the comparatively more rockin’ Laulu kuolemasta a year later, and the draw-everything together Ruumissaarna Pt. 1 in 2022. Among those four full-lengths, the Finnish trio solidified and strengthened their strident aesthetic – malodorous melodicism, hypnotically rendered through a ripped-raw soundfield, making their strangely hummable ruminations on triumph & tragedy sound all the more alien, each album unified yet unique within that aesthetic – and made it all seem effortless. Finally, it seemed that the name Förgjord was no longer a “secret.”
As such, it makes total sense for Förgjord to strike back with inarguably their most-direct and least-tweaked album yet: Perkeleen Weri. The band’s seventh full-length, Perkeleen Weri is definitely – and immediately – recognizable as Förgjord, maintaining mostly all those above characteristics and chiseled into new-yet-familiar shapes. However, the distinct difference here is that the band have dialed down the atmosphere for the sake of the almighty RIFF. Indeed, Perkeleen Weri is rife with riffs…riff after riff after riff after RIFF, all of them rough and rowdy and catchy and cantankerous. It’s a sonic / psychic move back to ancient times, primordial “regression” of a most ’80s manner (or, at the very least, the very early ’90s) that’s symbolic of both youth and older age. While nostalgic in essence, the burning-black flame here strides forward, ready to burn past, present, and future; suitably, the execution and especially recording feel almost clearheaded in context, or at least Förgjord‘s most crystalized attack yet. Melodicism abounds, of course, but there’s a murderous edge to Perkeleen Weri that’s never been this fully explored. Add to that palpitating attack a tasteful dose of organ and some chorus FX and you have a black metal record that’s simultaneously traditional and nuanced.
“Perkeleen Weri is an album which is dedicated to glory days of black metal,” explains founding guitarist / bassist Valgrinder, “when things were pure and albums were built more on guitar riffs and not just atmosphere, when songs themselves weren’t hidden behind hellish tempos or under huge production. Perkeleen Weri is a pure, naked, and shameless album, for both good and bad – nothing more, nothing less.”
As always, a carefully cultivated lyricism informs Förgjord‘s latest work. Valgrinder again: “Lyrically, it is a compilation of small stories from our part of Savo area, stories that were told from one generation to the next. Whispered secrets, well-known tragedies, and horror stories that were told to children to keep them safe; memories from old days when brother stood against his brother – the untold sins of Finland’s civil war, wounds that never healed properly. It’s about hard times, when depression took over the lands and charlatans tried to exploit the common man – when the blood of Perkele was running and people did whatever they had to, just to survive. We are here not to judge, but to speak their stories.”Release date, cover, tracklisting to be announced shortly.
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