All right, I'm a sucker for anything folk-influenced. There, I said it. I even liked that Woodtemple album, which, when you get down to it, definitely has its fair share of flaws. About the only way for me to dislike something folky is to completely remove any backbone from it, a la Otyg. Thankfully, that's far from the case with Vreid's I Krig.

I should specify that the sound of the album is hardly dripping in folk. To a large extent, this is very thrashy black metal, like a more melodic 1349. Some of the songs have folk elements, but not all, and said elements never predominate. This may come as a surprise to those who only know of the band as one of the groups which emerged after the demise of Windir, the legendary heavily folk-influenced black metal ensemble, following leading man Valfar's death. Vreid definitely has their own identity and stands on its own as a group, as it should, given that this is their third album thus far.

Vreid is a standard four piece ensemble: two guitars, bass, and drum. There are no keyboards here to weaken the warlike theme of both the album and the band. The vocals certainly reflect the group’s black metal nature, mid-ranged, raspy, and aggressive, with the occasional bout of clean vocals for atmosphere; they’re effective, but they don’t steal the show. Neither does the drumming which, though solid and varied, stays firmly in the background. No, what really predominates here are the guitars. In a lot of ways, the sound is equal parts thrash and black: there’s not as much tremolo as you’d expect and there’s lots of chugging riffs. The guitar tone is quite solid, clear, but with the right amount of distortion to keep the music’s edge going. Every so often, the lead guitar will let loose a clean solo over this, a trope seldom seen in most black metal, but effective nonetheless. All this comes together with a production polished enough to allow the bass to be audible, even though it seldom ever takes the fore in the music’s sound.

Though the album’s feel is fairly consistent, there’s enough variety in the riffs and song structure to keep the songs distinct. While some of the songs, like the first two, are straightforward face-melters, others, like “Dei Daude Steig Av Grad” and the titular “I Krig” play around with progressive tempo changes. The latter also includes violins with one section sounding almost similar to Western bluegrass, like something out of the soundtrack to the TV show Firefly. As I mentioned the folk elements are fairly subdued in this album, but they show up in unexpected places, like the main riff on the second track, “Under Isen”. The final track, “Millom Hav Og Fjell”, even begins with a chanted section reminiscent of Enslaved’s “Havenless”.

Overall, this is a very good album. The musicians are all quite skilled at their art, and the songwriting here shows variety and maturity, going beyond the initial impressions of thrashy aggression to deliver a surprisingly diverse album that still maintains a unified, coherent sound. If you’re looking for something aggressive that still keeps elements of melody and complexity, this is the album for you.