Band: Gaahl’s Wyrd
Album: Braiding the Stories
Genre: Black Metal/Blackened Rock
Country: Norway
Label: Season of Mist
Released: June 6th 2025
Introduction
Gaahl’s Wyrd returned with their second album after four years of silence, and as you can imagine the release was well anticipated in our BMZ Camp. After the latest Trelldom album turned heads in quite a few directions, especially for me, I was grinding my teeth thinking about how this record will sound after the announcement. So poor yourself a glass of fine wine and let’s just jump right into it, shall we?
Braiding the Stories
Tracklist:
- The Dream
- Braiding the Stories
- Voices in My Head
- Time and Timeless Timeline
- And the Now
- Through the Veil
- Visions and Time
- Root the Will
- Flowing Starlight
This time I will not walk you through the songs but do it in a way that i just write down what comes to my mind while listening to the record.
First of all the intro track the dream already lays the emotional groundwork of what i expected of this concept album, melodic, dark, mellow and suprisingly clean vocals that take your mind on a journey.
Continuing this journey with the title track you descent more and more in this mellow haunting somewhat rainy feeling like certain post rock bands like If These Trees Could Talk or We Lost the Sea. I personally interpret the vibe the music and Gaahls vocals give off as the spirit of old town Bergen on one of the 240 rainy days, heavy dark atmosphere with that special warm feeling of overlooking everything of it from the distant comfort of your living room next to a wooden stove.
Voices In My Head is feeling exactly like the title. As the album transforms into Time and Timeless Timeline the mysterious thunderstorm over my Bergen transforms into a powerfull tornado with the increased heaviness in the drums and guitars and the high pitched vocals feeling like a civil alarm siren. After the storm settles there is still this eerieness in the air that lingers around for a bit where you don’t know if the storm comes back and that feeling is exactly whats captured in And The Now. A feeling of uncertainty, uncannyness and lack of emotional direction drifting through the sounds of the song.
The whole album captures this fantastic feeling of dissonance, drifting through space and time.
Conclusion
If you are open to enjoy going in new directions with your long time heros, check this album out. Get seated in a comfortable chair open yourself some wine and close your eyes. I now its been nearly 2 months since it was released but I needed that time to fully capture the spirit this record encompasses. Personal rating: a solid 8 out of 10 that I will spin a lot more this coming autumn.
BMZ Rating: 8 out of 10
Your thoughts on Gaahl’s Wyrd
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