Voluspaa have had a long journey since their first demo back in 1994, and their 2010 debut album Asa was named after the place where the recording took place and the rootword of Asatru, whose spirit can be heard alive and well in this release. Built on a framework of driving black metal guitars, and with a mixture of soaring clean and scything extreme vocals, Asa presents songs that are catchy, melodic, and just plain heavy all at once. Each track features plenty of memorable themes, and there is always some little detail in the arrangements - a flash of piano here, an aching violin there - to breathe that extra layer of depth into the music. Voluspaa mastermind Freddy Skogstad has done a brilliant job orchestrating these epic, atmospheric, and evocative songs into a beautiful collection of folk-infused black metal (and at times...the reverse).
