Introducing: :BOLVERK:

Norwegian trio :BOLVERK: have cooked up a deliciously wild and ferocious sound that challenges the boundaries of extreme metal and they delightfully describe as “extreme, melodic and ferocious.”

The trio of Thomas Bolverk (guitars), Bjørn “Narrenschiff” Holter (vocals) and Christopher “Rammr” Rakkestad (bass) is soon to be joined by a new drummer, on whom Thomas says: “We’re happy to be able to say that we have a new skin-beater in place who we’ll be ready to announce in the not too distant future. This is an awesome musician and also a friend, so we really can’t wait to get this new chapter of the line-up started.”

The band came together as Thomas had played with Bjørn in their former band Images In Twilight and Chris in their former band Ragnarok. And he told us: “Both these guys are multi-talented artists and musicians and down-to-earth, solid guys. We’ve been friends for many years and when the time was right to start :BOLVERK: they were the first ones I asked.

“Bjørn has a very versatile and impressive voice that we’re still trying to exploit to its fullest. In addition to that, he’s also a very talented tattoo artist, painter and designer. He is even the father of the boardgame: Drinking Game From Hell and the incredible Snowmen from Knøff. Chris is, in addition to being a multi-instrumentalist mastering both guitar, bass and drums as well as having an impressive clean vocal, also an artist and a designer. His greatest achievement to date is on the other hand fathering my beautiful God-daughter, Ronja.”

Since forming, the trio have worked hard to create their own sound that has a heavy focus on contrasts, moving between different moods, and navigating between tempos. For example, their music is built around the mantra of playing extreme Norwegian metal that aims to be as sad and melodic as Solstafir and as brutal as Marduk.

As Thomas explains: “We are exploring the borders of the Extreme Metal genre and are actively working with the contrasts that all our inspirations have embedded in us. Our music deals with contrasts like fast/slow, brutal/melodic, chaos/order, intensity/harmony and so forth. We have put a lot of work into making the contrasts work in the music. It’s easy to play slow and melodic and it’s easy to play fast and brutal but making them work together in a natural way is more of a challenge. The songs on “Uaar” and “Svarte sekunder” all show signs of these different traits and have all been arranged multiple times to make sure that we’ve done our utmost to make this album holistic and comprehensible. Like a whole instead of a collection of different ingredients, if you will.

Our latest taste of this is “BOLVERK”‘s second album Svarte sekunder (Black Seconds), which followed last year’s debut album Uaar. The album explores the concept of thanatosis, which involves people and animals feigning death.

On the album, Thomas told us: “We are very excited for people to hear it, of course. Most of the material for the two first albums is written in the same time period, so they are to be considered siblings or at least cousins. To some extent, it is random which songs ended up on Uaar and which songs ended up on Svarte sekunder. Even so, we feel that the band has matured in the year that passed between the albums. Maybe not so much musically, but I think we got a bit better working with this process.

“I’ve always been used to making some riffs, trying to put them in an interesting sequence and sending it to the other band members. Then we meet in the rehearsal studio to work with it and then we go to the studio to record. As we live geographically apart, this has been a bit different for :BOLVERK:. The process starts in the same way, but arrangements are discussed and worked on over the Internet. Everything is recorded in different studios, and we only meet to rehearse when we have live shows. Mix and mastering is always done by Magnus “Devo” Andersson in Endarker Studio, Sweden though, to ensure the end result is excellent.

“I must say, that I feel Svarte sekunder is a little step up from Uaar. I don’t know why. Where Uaar is very experimental and progressive, Svarte sekunder is maybe a little more holistic. Anyway, I really don’t know and I’m also completely incompetent on the matter, as I’m way to close to it all. I think people just have to decide for themselves and it’s going to be very interesting to see what they think.”

The album starts out with one of its “slower” songs Beastly Ways of Man, which features delicious piercing guitars and intense drums under vicious vocals. A personal favourite is second track Jericho Trumpet, which opens up with an edgy riff and rolling drums then a laboured lick supports heavy vocals. Big chunky guitars come into support the chorus cries of “Jericho trumpet” then fast-paced guitars and drums support intense vocals. That all builds up to an intense building siren-type sound that drops into another section of huge vocals. Check it out in the video here :

That feeds into the hugely enjoyable Banner of Ophidia, which kicks off with a cool guitar lick and doomy cymbals, then a flying guitar riff supports intense vocals and wild drums. That sets the scene for an excellent album, which throws in one or two surprises like the more “laid-back” Somber Soliloquy and the intense Belphegor’s Hymn. It effectively concludes with the album’s title track, which opens up with powerful drums that continue under a funky guitar lick then explodes into life. But that’s followed by two bonus tracks, including the very jaunty Obsidian Byzantium that features a superbly heavy middle section led by a wild solo and more vicious drums.

Speaking more on the album, Thomas added: “What’s new on this album is that we have a couple of songs inspired by Norwegian folque music. It will be interesting to see what people think of them. So far, it seems that people think they’re the best songs on the album. I like them, of course, or they wouldn’t be there at all, but it takes a little getting used to for me.

“We grew up with folque music and children’s tunes and it’s been with us forever, but it’s the first time for me to integrate some of it in our own music. There may have been a snippet here and there with Ragnarok, but nothing like this. All the songs on the album are close to my heart. All in their own different way. For the first time, we also did a cover song of Norwegian singer/songwriter Jonas Fjeld’s The Bells Are Ringing for You Now. This sounds nothing like the original, but I’ve always loved the song since I first heard it back in the eighties and it was an honour to try to make a version of it.”

:BOLVERK:’s sound has been influenced by a wide range of different sounds, from classic and progressive rock through to thrash, death and black metal and everything in between. Thomas calls out the likes of Demon, Tank, Motörhead, Saxon, NWOBHM, Necrophobic, Vomitory, Kvaen, Sacramentum as key influences, as well as guitarists like Ace Frehley, Jimi Hendrix, Rory Gallagher and Ritchie Blackmore.

And on what inspires them to write music, Thomas explains: “I play a lot of guitar and make a lot of riffs. That’s the key I think, quantity. Probably, I am very tactile and need to fiddle with something all the time to stop me from going crazy. These days, it’s very easy to save all the ideas. I just record everything that I feel can be useful at some point on my phone and send it to the cloud. From time to time I go through all the riffs, weed out all the crap (which sometimes can be a lot) and save the rest in a bank for later use.

“Sometimes, I go through the banks to find useable riffs, but most of the time these days I have an opening riff or two and then I just keep working from there. A lot of the time it’s better to just sit and play on it and see what comes out than looking through the vault searching for something that may fit. Much of the time I find myself trying to fit something I like into something only to realize that I’m forcing it and that it isn’t really working, so often it’s just better for the song if I compose something new. 

“As for lyrics, Bjørn and I do half the lyrics each. For me, I collect song titles all the time. Every time I hear something that sounds good, I save it for later use. When I have song ready, I go through all the words while listening to it and sometimes something comes to me. This process can take seconds or it can take weeks. Usually, the songs have many suggestions for vocals and lyrics before they are ready.”

You can catch :BOLVERK: touring with Crest of Darkness in the autumn, while Thomas will also be playing shows with his other bands Under The Oak and Welcome To Hell. But you’ll have a little wait for new music, with the band scheduling a follow-up album for 2025.

And Thomas adds: “This is probably what every band would answer, but with :BOLVERK: we are actually trying to create something unique. We are trying to integrate everything we like into one band and the only rule is: THERE ARE NO RULES! If it’s good or interesting, we try it out. If it sucks, we scrap it, of course, but if it’s cool we don’t spend time worrying about what other people might think. If it works for us, then that’s how it’s going to be.

“It’s very relieving not having to consider borders of genres or whether people will tolerate it or not. The goal of the band is to challenge the borders of the Extreme Metal genre, both in the brutal and the melodic direction and if people like it…AWESOME! If they don’t? Well, then they are lucky they really don’t have to listen to it, do they?”

You can follow :BOLVERK: on Facebook, and check out their music on Spotify and Apple Music. And discover more metal bands like this through their label WormHoleDeath Records.