Named after a Norse giant and penning songs about ‘Hordanes Land’ one would naturally assume that Aurvandil were a Norwegian group. Indeed listening to this five track EP there is little to detract you from this notion. The mention of early Enslaved and a familiarity with their albums up to and including ‘Eld’ sees ‘Ferd’ very much in that chilly icebound mindset and then it comes as a real surprise to see that the band are not Vikings but Gauls hailing as they do from France. The bio sheet states little is known about this mysterious group and that “Ferd resulted from a lengthy immersion in Northland, a step in the wanderer's northbound Journey.” This seems to be the work of one person, named as the project and they also seem to be behind two other one man entities, Morgoth playing funeral doom and Manipulator, death metal. This is by no means the only material from Aruvindil either as since 2007 there have been four demos and four limited edition splits released.
Although listed as an EP you will not feel short changed picking this up as it comprises 40 minutes worth of music. Essentially the opening and closing tracks Peregrination I & II are instrumental but there is still plenty about them to conjure up a frosty folk etched atmosphere. Three long tracks all around the 10 minute mark are between these. First is ‘Over The Seven Mountains’ and it flails in with everything blazing and soaring away instrumentally before a ravenous yell joins the tumult. Vocals pretty much toy with us and it is keyboards entering the fray next and a slower mesmerising pace. You can hear the influence of the Norse greats at play here and as the vocals bite in properly, slightly low in the mix behind the strumming guitars, you finally get the idea of the whole picture, in full unrelenting glory. Production suits, it could be thicker but then again I am listening via PC speakers so give it the benefit of the doubt, bass is no doubt in there somewhere. Violin eases the path ‘Through Hordanes Land’ but it is a brief interlude before the heavyset tumult furrows back in. On the whole this is incredibly fast paced stuff with little in the way of downing tools throughout the main songs. This may lead to a bit of one dimensionality considering the length of the songs but for me it works albeit in breathless fashion.
In the end the biggest surprise about this really is that the project is French, musically this brings little new to the feast but it does what it does with vigour, passion and skill and if Aruvindil entered Norway as some sort of foreign exchange student he certainly got the most out his visit and passes this test with flying colours.
http://www.myspace.com/aurvandilmusic
