AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: VÖLVA — “THE TOWER”

Sweden’s “avenging witches of black metal,” Völva, opened a lot of eyes and ears with their 2020 debut EP Promises Unfold as Lies, and they will open more with their forthcoming debut album Desires Profane, now set for release on November 28th by Grind To Death Records (CD) and Fiadh Productions (vinyl).

The album is described as “ten hymns to the lost souls of their persecuted sisters, incinerated upon the murderous bonfires of Christianity,” as “a scalding assault of vehement rage,” and as a pursuit of “themes of Satanic feminism both in a spiritual cosmic sense as well as using your free will, body and lust as vessels to sin for a higher purpose”.

As a vivid sign of what the new album brings, today we premiere a video of Völva performing a song called “The Tower,” which opens the album, filmed in the setting of Studio Quaalude, a recording studio located in Malmö.

photo by Asa Hagstram

If you heard this song first, no one would need to tell you that Völva make Satanic black metal. The music itself is so powerfully sinister, predatory, and diabolically lustful that you can smell the poison stench of sulfur and feel the heat of hellish fire just from listening.

Launched with the growling throb of the bass and the pop and tumble of the drums, the song soon brings in eerily wailing guitar tones that build toward a siren sear, and furious vocals that sound like shattering glass, and cut like razor shards as well.

The song’s throbbing and punching propulsion is primitive and visceral, the main source of the song’s lusting qualities, and it becomes even more supernaturally sinister as the riffing rises in waves of deranged and dismal delirium.

Eventually, the drums begin to batter and then to blast, and the whirring chords elevate to an even more fiendish and frenzied plane, berserk and convulsive. And so the song is food for the reptile brain, and it puts reptiles in the brain as well.

VÖLVA are now:
Skuld – Drums
Hedonistica – Bass & lead vocals
Ruin – Guitar
Vittra – Guitar & backing vocals

They mince no words about their stance:

Völva are intolerant to any behavior implying someone else taking any right to claim that their color of skin, heritage or geographical belonging entitles them to be superior to someone else. Needless to say, but as satanic feminists living in a society like ours, there’s no end of the hatred we feel against the male white supremacy.

We’ll add their explanation that “the word völva is a derivation of the Old Norse word vǫlr, which often is interpreted as ‘staff-bearer,’ and that “in pre-Christian times, the völva was a highly respected woman, and is considered a powerful spiritual fortune teller in Norse mythology.”

As noted above, Grind To Death will release Desires Profane on CD, Fiadh will release it on vinyl, and a digital edition will also be available. For more news about the record and how to get it, check out the locations linked below.

FIADH:
https://fiadh.bandcamp.com/

GRIND TO DEATH:
https://www.grindtodeathrecords.com/
https://grindtodeathrecords.bandcamp.com/

FOLLOW VÖLVA:
https://www.instagram.com/volva.bm/
https://volva-bm.bandcamp.com/