Udåd – Udåd

Band: Udåd
Title: Udåd
Label: Peaceville Records
Release date: March 15th, 2024
Country: Norway
Format reviewed: High-quality digital recording

The self-titled debut album by Norwegian Udåd has me entranced from the first simple, naked riff. The texture of the guitar tone is at the heart of this remarkable release. The arrangement is minimalistic and repetitive, based on endless repetitions of folk song-like riffs. It resembles early black metal minimalist creations such as Burzums The Crying Orc and Hypothermias Rakbladsvalsen II. The focus on texture of the naked tone can also be compared to works of classical composers such as Éliane Radigue and Andrea Tarrodi.

Still with these comparisons, Udåd is a unique composition. The tone is raw, and the playing style is honest and almost naive. I can hear every finger on the board, every note crashing into the next, ringing out and meeting the following on the way. It is so limited and yet feels eternal as if the unhindered notes have endless space to move in. There is an admirable self-discipline in daring to be so vulnerable, so innocent and unprotected.

Several songs start with one guitar playing the riff solo for several rounds before anything else is added. This gives time to digest the riff and the tone, giving each melodic element space to be fully absorbed. The second guitar enters with a counterpoint melody that sometimes complements the story told by the first guitar, sometimes changes the narrative by adding a different emphasis.

The drums are toned down in the background and play a supportive role. Often, they are silent for minutes before they make their entry in a song, which makes their appearance all the more effective. The drums speak only when they have something to say. When they do speak, they secure the floor of the arrangement together with the equally toned-down bass, clearly audible, anchoring the riffs to the ground. Bass and drums hold the safely anchored ground, for the rest of the creation to be so painfully and euphorically fragile on. Sometimes it feels like the whole composition will break and fall apart. It is so stripped and so honest. Every sway, every blue note is felt.

Something needs to be said about the vocals, but I don’t know how. They are consistent, high pitched and based on harsh fry screams, but it feels wrong to describe them in those analytic terms. They feel. Even though they are not the slightest theatrical but rather coherent, strong and cold all the way through, they convey an ambiguous emotion that ranges from despair to euphoria. I don’t know how it is possible. The screams fit seamlessly into the cold, naked arrangement. They are the voices of the forest rather than a voice in the forest.

The folky base of the riffs gives a strong sense of Scandinavian forest, right from the first track. You can smell the resin and feel the wet moss under your feet, the cone needles slowly decomposing in late dying autumn. It is clean and simple. A story is being told, not pretending to be anything else. The little people in the forest live their own life. They are not trying to teach us anything – they just are. And so is Udåd living its own life, being its own story without trying to achieve anything else. It just is.

Some of the tracks are thoughtful and meditative while others are childlike and almost amusing. The second track is a playful melody played in staccato, bringing to mind the small gnomes and trolls populating the Scandinavian forests, coming out from their rocks and treeholes in the mist of dusk and dawn. I can almost see them tapping around on light feet, peeking from behind the trees, climbing out of holes in the ground.

As the album progresses the black metal flow grows slightly thicker with tremolo picking and more modern sounding riffs, but I hardly notice. I am already so deeply immersed, so hypnotized by the dance of the forest, the texture, the slight bending of notes that feel like trees bending for a wind that constantly changes in strength and direction.

During the album I find myself sometimes laughing, sometimes smiling and sometimes almost in tears. I lose my way in the middle of a movement, lost in an unexpected forest trail, captured by a painful or beautiful streak not in the tones but in the space between them. This is pure minimalist perfection. The beauty of restraint. 10/10 by Ask

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10/10  Immortal Classic
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