When you think of Norwegian black metal, which you don't because you're a stupid tool who likes to lick taint, you think of forests and vikings and shit. Windir, about 10 years ago, captured forests and vikings and shit perfectly and truely in their album Arntor.
Based upon archaic local legends and written entirely in an ancient local language, Windir's second album fleshes out the thin skeleton of harsh black metal with Nordic folk tunes. Imagine the accordian. Now imagine it being cool. That's what Arntor sounds like. Valfar's vocals are drawn out and seem to flow perfectly from line to line without breath, and the guitar leads sound as if they were written 1000 years ago.
Arntor is the perfect combination of folk music and black metal. Unlike most folk metal, Windir was not based in death or thrash metal, but in black metal, and their folk music was more realistic. The songs "Arntor, ein Windir" (Arntor, a Warrior) and "Svartesmeden og Lundamyrstrollet" (The Blacksmith and the Troll of Lundamyri) are based off of an ancient folk song and an old folk story, respectively. The blast beats seem to flow perfectly into the slow, jig-like folk breakdowns and back to black. Overall, this album is better than everything you own and I would probably kill my closest friends for an opportunity to reform this band with the original members (the vocalist/songwriter/guitarist/accordian player/everythingist died in a snowstorm on the way to his family's cabin...that's pretty fucking black metal).
