Norway's Vreid has built themselves quite a name over the years. Born out of the ashes of Windir, the Sogndal quartet has consistently churned out quality melodic black metal since 2004. September 28th marks the release date of the band's first album since 2015. Their seventh album overall, Lifehunger shows a band in complete control of an ancestral sound. As black metal continues to push into more experimental or atmospheric realms, the occasional palette cleanser does a lot of good.
For the Norwegians, they have decades of sourced material within the borders of their nation. An act like Enslaved is easy to invoke, but Vreid blazes their own trail. With a track like "One Hundred Years" that is very apparent. The five and a half minute track packs soaring melodies and feverish blasts into a frigid, blackened concoction. As the track clears the first three minutes, it turns into an almost acoustic rendition with clean vocals and gentle chords.
Vreid spoke to the album saying, "Soon we can finally unleash Lifehunger. We are so damn satisfied and proud of this album and thank you for the fantastic response for the 2 first singles. There are much more to come, the album has a lot of variations with instrumentals, a very different track in 'Hello Darkness' with Addi from Solstafir on guest vocals and some brutal stuff, of course. But now we present you what I think is one of the absolute highlights of the album."
They continued on to discuss "One Hundred Years" stating, "The song 'One Hundred Years' is one of these songs that you do in your career where you feel that every puzzle matches and everything just adds up. It's hard to describe it, and frankly, the magic of music can never described so I won't even try. I have had this feeling a few times before with songs such as 'Pitch Black' and 'Solverv' to name a few, and this is the feeling I always chase as a composer. Lyrically this song is completely inspired by the words and the myth of the spectacular Knut Hamsun. Some things are eternal."
Stream the new track now and pre-order Lifehunger from Season of Mist ahead of its release.
