''Folkesange'' ( Danish: "folk songs") is the third

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track cartridge, 8-track or Cassette tape, cassette), or digital distribution, dig ...

by Danish band

Myrkur Myrkur is a solo black metal project by Danish singer Amalie Bruun. Initially, the real-life identity of the person behind the project was kept unknown. Her identity has since been made public. Myrkur has released four full-length studio albums ...

, led by singer

Amalie Bruun Amalie Bruun (born 6 January 1985) is a Danish musician, actress and model. She currently fronts the one-person black metal project Myrkur, where she acts as songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Bruun has released four studio albums, one live a ...

. It was released on 20 March 2020 under

Relapse Records Relapse Records is an American independent record label based in Upper Darby Township, Pennsylvania. It was founded by Matthew F. Jacobson in 1990. The label features many grindcore, death metal, metalcore and sludge metal artists. History The ...

. ''Folkesange'' diverts from the style of the band's previous

black metal Black metal is an extreme metal, extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. Common traits include Tempo#Beats per minute, fast tempos, a Screaming (music)#Black metal, shrieking vocal style, heavily distorted Electric guitar, guitars played with tr ...

albums into

folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be ca ...

. The album consists of renditions of Scandinavian traditional music performed with

period instruments In the historically informed performance movement, musicians perform classical music using restored or replicated versions of the instruments for which it was originally written. Often performances by such musicians are said to be "on authentic ...

such as

mandola The mandola (US and Canada) or tenor mandola (Ireland and UK) is a fretted, stringed musical instrument. It is to the mandolin what the viola is to the violin: the four double courses of strings tuned in fifths to the same pitches as the viola ...

lyre The lyre () (from Greek λύρα and Latin ''lyra)'' is a string instrument, stringed musical instrument that is classified by Hornbostel–Sachs as a member of the History of lute-family instruments, lute family of instruments. In organology, a ...

nyckelharpa ''Nyckelharpa'' (, roughly "keyed fiddle" in Swedish language, Swedish, , plural: ) is a "keyed" Bowed string instrument, bowed chordophone, primarily originating from Sweden in its modern form, but with its historical roots scattered across med ...

and

talharpa The talharpa, also known as a tagelharpa (tail-hair harp), hiiu kannel (originally hiiurootsi (which meant Vormsi island located on the halfway to Hiiumaa) kannel) or stråkharpa (bowed harp), is a two to four stringed bowed lyre from northern ...

as well as of original acoustic compositions. The first single from the album, "Ella", was released on 14 January 2020.

Critical reception

''Folkesange'' was met with generally favorable reviews from critics. At

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, which assigns a weighted average rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, this release received an average score of 75, based on 6 reviews. ''

Metal Hammer ''Metal Hammer'' is a heavy metal music magazine and website founded in 1983, published in the United Kingdom by Future, with other language editions published by different companies available in numerous other countries. ''Metal Hammer'' featu ...

Critical reception

Track listing

Charts

References