Borknagar was founded in 1995 and made some awesome records like Quintessence and Epic. Masterbrain Øystein G. Brun always wrote the songs on an acoustic guitar, so the songs would sound organic.

 

After all these heavy albums Borknagar now released Origin, an album with an appropriate title, because it is a complete acoustic album. No more black metal on this one. Just clean vocals, acoustic guitars, some folky instruments, organs, moogs and violins. And although the complete metalpart is absent, it is so obviously Borknagar. It’s not totally different, the song structures are as they used to be. It is just less aggressive, or better, not aggressive at all. This is pure folk.

They even re-recorded one of my favourite songs, ‘Oceans Rise’. Unfortunately I have to say that the original version sounds better. Nonetheless it still is a great sounding piece of art. Although the songs are all quite nice, Origin is not able to hold my attention. But I must say I love ‘White’. A song with some nice dramatic passages.

 

I like the idea, it’s performed very well, the songs are good, but I still prefer the ‘metal’ Borknagar. Folk fans that usually don’t like black metal should check it out I guess. They might like this one.