Artist: Norrhem
Country: Finland
Label: Out of the Dungeon
Formats: CD
Year: 2025
Norrhem’s musical journey has taken them through quite a development, starting from rawer beginnings to a sound that became increasingly more epic in atmosphere. With ‘Aurinko Ja Teräs’ the band has arrived at their fourth full-length, their first record to be released by Out of the Dungeon.
On the previous record ‘Elonkehrä’, the music shifted towards a more Pagan spirit, and that remains a major part of the sound on the latest album. But already on the split with Sielunvihollinen a somewhat more urgent and aggressive energy had taken hold, and that road is further explored on ‘Aurinko Ja Teräs’. In practice that means that the album still retains that epic and Folky undertone, but the overall sound is a bit harsher, the melodies slightly more subdued and the keyboards serving more as cosmic accents. It makes the overall sound a bit larger, more powerful, without losing the sense of groove and overall melodies.
On ‘Aurinko Ja Teräs’ it feels like the band is coming more into their own. The marriage of the catchy elements with the harsher tone, the slight shift of the keyboards in the mix, the more creative drums and delicately placed solos make a track like ‘Tuliholvin Alla’ just that more convincing. The music also feels more dynamic than on ‘Elonkehrä’, with for instance ‘Teräsmyrskyssä’ switching from midtempo groove to thrashing pace with pulsating drums. The title track, that was already part of the Sielunvihollinen split, is a banger of a track with catchy melodies contained in a forceful song, and the epic tones, the excellent leads and cosmic notes make ‘Taistelusta Taisteluun’ one of the better Norrhem tracks to date.
As a whole, ‘Aurinko Ja Teräs’ feels like a more balanced record. Perhaps a track like ‘Hävitetty Maa’ misses the mark slightly with rhythms that don’t quite connect, but that doesn’t take away that this is by far the most convincing Norrhem record to date. Harsher, more focused on the overall atmosphere yet epic and catchy, it feels the band has homed in on a formula that is their best so far.
