LUMSK – “Fremmede Toner”

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(Dark Essence Records) 2023.
CD/2LP/digital
Progressive folk/folk/folk metal – NORWAY

After practically 15 and little longer years, Lumsk are back with new album.  “Fremmede Toner” is their 4th release, and product which will please many fans of this group.

 

 

During the previous period, band has suffered of some personal changes,  also not continuously, but still dedicatedly preparing the material for the new album. And “Fremmede Toner” is sort of conceptual release, and title of album, takes its name from a collection of poems by Norwegian author Andre Bjerke and his translation of the most famous poets in Europe and North America, like Nietzsche, Goethe, Swinburne..But this is where Lumsk take the concept one step further, because, after having composed the music using the Norwegian version of the poems, the band then take those compositions and adapt them to the poems in the original language itself. So, this is the album with finally 12 tracks in, done in pretty atmospheric/ambient mood, where progressive tendencies
are combined with folk elements, and where instrumentalist phrases occasionally emphasize additional hidden metal influences.

 

 

The material itself has slower movement and rhythmicity, which is not quite “welcome” in every part of certain song. But more or less, in the end we get the impression that the band members achieved what they originally wanted. In any case, followers of this expressive approach can certainly be satisfied with the discographic return of the Norwegian band.