Review: Myrkur - Myrkur

If Enya made a black metal record, I imagine it would sound something like Myrkur, the debut EP from this Danish one-woman black metal project. Since the mystery surrounding Myrkur's identity appears to have been solved (Amalie Bruun, a model who is also in the indie band Ex-Cops), we can now simply focus on the music, which is rather mediocre and amateur-sounding at times.

Myrkur  begins and ends with a choir of Myrkur's angelic multi-tracked vocals, not something often associated with black metal. These clean vocals are featured throughout the EP, unfortunately to the detriment of the songs, which lack a strong presence of harsh vocals.

After a not-great-but-not-terrible start ("Ravnens Banner"), the folky "Frosne Vind" sounds strangely similar to a Danish version of the Christmas song "What Child Is This?" The next two tracks, "Ma Du Brænde I Helvede" and "Latvian Fegurd", as well as "Nattens Barn," start with lots of promise and offer hints of the potential that may hopefully develop into a solid future release. "Dybt I Skoven," on the other hand, is a second-rate imitation of what Amesoeurs achieved five years ago.

All in all, Myrkur  probably doesn't deserve all of the attention that it's been getting since this mysterious project came out of nowhere a few months back. However, I'm interested to see if and how Myrkur's music will evolve from this EP to records down the road.

Metallurgical Rating:  2.5 / 5.0