FORNDOM
FORNDOM “Mopir”
By Octopi Mills
It seems Ludwig Sward is a fellow who holds old values and ideals; the morality of Scandinavia and a return to its past in the form of northern folk music.
Many will find this running like a soundtrack for the series “VIKINGS”, and compare it immediately to something like WARDRUNA. But there seems to be something different going on here in the instrumentation than something so obvious...With a crystalline sound and production, the songs sound both icy and warm and made like a ship that has been finely smoothed over in carpentry of sound and vision. It seems to nearly have a sort of neoclassical feel at times in its deep searching yet simple, rustic approach. There is a video made for “Tunridor” (Tun riders) of high quality and the accompanying photography is well done as well. The crisp percussion work is to be noted and is employed in the right ways.
The music evokes old gray skies and cold seas of foamy melancholy in a land of wet stone ... the colors are more shades than any colors of spring or summer or fall, making it a wintry sort of affair. The only problem with it all is that this is not something one can listen to at just any old moment of the day and is certainly not celebration music, even in an ancient hall. It has a deep brooding feeling that demands being perhaps seated to enjoy in a camp of sorts. There is an overall feeling that is grayer and more shadowy than pure darkness itself. It is not the music for battles and ales or great epic voyages of adventure- it is the looking of a deep and cavernous place within oneself in trials of a shamanistic kind. And at times in evokes the air of a dark brooding hen in the cuckold of sorrows. My personal favorite track was "Jorn (earth)".