It’s been roughly half a decade since Völur‘s last album, Death Cult. The band, however, has been steadily working much of that time, kicking around ideas for their new album, a collaboration with Cares called Breathless Spirit.
Breathless Spirit draws inspiration from Icelandic myth. It’s both experimental and grounded in timeless metal benchmarks. Völur began working on the album in 2020 and refined it during and after the pandemic. The album, named after the Inuit artwork on the cover, fuses elements of doom, free jazz, black metal, traditional Irish and Iranian folk melodies, and Bolt Thrower-inspired riffs. And yet, it’s accessible and takes listeners on a journey. There are moments of striking beauty and terror as well as superb dynamics and nuance.
Decibel is delighted to premiere the title track from the album today – Völur’s first new song in roughly half a decade. Breathless Spirit is available for preorder in a die-hard edition that includes a bag of tea (not weed) for a “fully immersive listening experience” along with a 7″ featuring Völur/Cares and Bowed Arts. As you listen to the track, read an interview with Lucas Gadke (bass and vocals) and Laura Bates (violin and vocals).
Why did you decide to premiere this track? Is it a representation of the new music?
GADKE: We were happy with that first section and happy with the big punch at the beginning. It comes in with almost like a Bolt Thrower riff and showcases what we’re about. The drum fills (courtesy of drummer Justin Ruppel) get longer and longer, eventually turning into something freely improvised. Hopefully, listeners are drawn in by the riff and stay along for the ride, which shifts moods and vibes.
BATES: I remember premiering something from Death Cult. Some reviews said that they made it through the first 20 seconds or so (laughs). They didn’t even get to the heavy part, and they’re like: “What is this? It’s not heavy music, you know?” If possible, we’d like to diversify our audience. Breathless Spirit is a good way to showcase that.
The album is named after the Inuit artwork on the cover. Can you tell us more about it?
BATES: My partner at the time (of writing the album) was a specialist in Inuit art. Breathless Spirit is an Inuit print by Saimaiyu Akesuk. It accompanied me through a tough couple of years. It’s so hard to make art when you’re in survival mode, but this print nourished me in a way I can’t explain. It went on to become the name of the album.
A printing plate is used, much like a linocut, to create a carved relief image for the art. It’s a collaboration between the artist and the printmaker. A thin, handmade Japanese paper is placed on the inked stone. They then print only 50 copies, and then the stone is ground flat. I like the impermanence of it – there are only 50 of these prints in the world.
Death Cult came out in 2020. Did any of this music start coming together during that time, or did you guys just shut out the band entirely and do other things during the pandemic?
GADKE: I’d say sixty percent of the music was written before lockdown. It was recorded slowly through lockdown. It was intended to be a shorter EP, but after we finished working on it and James (Beardmore of Cares) did his pass, I felt that it needed to be longer. Time got away from a lot of us over the pandemic, and there were a lot of questions about how to get together. Over the next two years, we wrote more music and came up with an album that we were proud of.
BATES: Some of it was done remotely. “Breathless Spirit” and “Windbourne Sorcery” became so monstrous that we had to book proper studio time. It was just beyond our engineering capabilities. We rented a studio and an engineer.
So much grief and horror visited all of us when the pandemic kicked in. Did that change any of the material as you continued to build on these songs? And if so, how?
GADKE: The key text that influenced this is Grettir the Strong, which is an Icelandic family saga. It tells the story of a man who becomes an outlaw due to his headstrong and reactive nature. It puts him on the wrong side of many people. He’s a beloved character nonetheless. He’s also cursed with a fear of the dark.
As the years pass, he becomes increasingly ostracized from society and grows more afraid of the dark. His loneliness and isolation are amplified throughout this saga. The isolation contributed to the record’s darker tone, especially on some of the tracks, which are quite bleak.
This album is sophisticated and has many layers, but you don’t stray listeners. There are gold coins that keep listeners on the path. I’m wondering if that was intentional.
GADKE: I think I learned how to tighten up concepts. You can indulge in different things here and there that kind of please the music nerd itch. This band has always been about contrasts. If you want to do a section with instruments from other cultures, you can do that. However, the contrast is a heavy riff that comes in hard. For me, it was about getting enough for myself to keep it interesting, but not to the point where people would feel pushed away, as if all this was just another weirdo prog band.
BATES: Anything that’s weird time-wise, I felt like we came by it naturally. We didn’t make it weird on purpose. It’s just sort of how it comes out compositionally.
What is next for the band in the next six to 12 months?
GADKE: We’re going to play shows. We’re booking some out-of-town shows and will announce our upcoming Toronto shows soon. The next big thing will be a large-scale project. A lot of stuff is written, but we need some funding to get underway.
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