Vreid (Norwegian for Wrath) was formed as a result of the tragic death of Windir founder and front man Valfar. He died of hyperthermia while travelling to his family cabin when the cold and the deep snow surprised him. The remaining three members, Hváll (bass), Steingrim (drums), Sture (vocals/guitar), decided to lay Windir to rest in honor of Valfar because without him, Windir wouldn’t be Windir anymore. A new guitarist named Ese, who was a close friend of the band and their co-engineer on the Likferd album, joined the remaining Windir members to form Vreid.

It may come as no surprise that the debut album of Vreid, Kraft shows resemblance to Windir’s discography. The foundation of Vreid is folk black metal but there is more: the track “Helvete” is largely an ambient piece of music, reminding of the instrumental tracks on Dimension F3H’s Reaping The World Winds while “Eldast, Utan Ǻ Gro” takes me back to the epic pieces of Emperor’s Anthems To The Welkin At Dusk.

The most chilling track of Kraft is without a doubt the acoustic song “Empty”, which is in the vein of Green Carnation but the lyrics can only be a homage to their deceased friend Valfar: “The Gods have taken you home, back to nature you have gone, back to where we all belong, death has taken its toll”.

As you have read, Kraft has turned out to be a versatile album but the emphasis lies on the folk (black) metal part and I think anyone who appreciated Windir will be able to appreciate Vreid. Anyone else who can appreciate good, emotional, atmospheric metal should try this out.