Taake

Noregs Vaapen

Dark Essence / Karisma Records 2011

The fifth full length album from Norway's Taake might actually be their best.  Hoest has crafted an album that embodies all the things that true Norwegian Black Metal represents and has even thrown a few curveballs our way.  The album opens with what for me is probably the best riff that Hoest ever wrote.  A cold Norwegian melody flows effortlessly out of the speakers as Fra Vadested Til Vaandesmed gets underway.  The riffs change yet the epic melodies never cease.  Nocturno Culto spews foul bile from his tortured throat on the track.  Freezing Nordic melodies continue to stream with blizzard-like fury as Orkan begins.  The song continues through the normal framework of a traditional Taake composition.  That is until the Nordic melodies rise again.  A ropey bass guitar adds bottom end to the midtempo trudge of Nordbundet.  Slightly strange folk hints cast pale shadows of the more black n roll oriented second half of the song.  Around the 1:30 mark the song becomes groove heavy.  However this is swept away as the intensity and speed of the track increases towards the song's final moments.  Du Ville Ville Vestland begins with a riff that actually brings to mind Rotting Christ's Thy Mighty Contract.  Then it cast aside in favor of groovier passages as well as a relentless stream of TNBM riffage.  Some doom metal and goth instrumentation even surface for brief periods, adding an interesting flavor to the material.  And then things get truly bizarre on Myr as pure Norwegian forest metal is counter balanced by banjo at the 3:21 mark.  An authoritarian stomp greets you on Helvetesmakt.  A raw and dirty black metal burst of speed and groove-laden crawl eat away at each other's corpses throughout the song.  As weird as that sounds on paper, in the context of the song it somehow works.  Noregs Vaapen is a complete success for Taake and for me represents the best album so far from this beast of black metal.  Noregs Vaapen finds Hoest as confident and experimental as ever while remaining firmly rooted on the foundation of True Norwegian Black Metal.