Himinbjorg is a pagan/viking black metal band from France and a good one also. Apparently this band is active for about 15-ish years, but considering this is a underground black metal band a lot of people didn’t hear of it including me.
The most fascinating thing about the band is the transitions of the songs. The intro is a kind of folkish sounding with bagpipes, almost Scottish sounding with some weird growl in French as best as I can hear. But the song after the intro is a full on black metal song, fast paced double bass and heavy riffs. And the whole album is mostly like that. And I don’t mean it in a bad way, something like that is what black metal lacks sometimes.
Himinbjorg is also pushing the sound quality in black metal up a level. In general black metal is considered as the worst quality recording in metal, and it is a stereotype that ALL of black metal is like that (obviously Immortal is huge in black metal and has a very admirable quality of albums). Himinbjorg is one of the exceptions, because the quality is great, and everything has great audibility even the bass can be heard (with headphones, but still).
The vocals are sometimes unhearable, as the vocalist uses a weird technique and sometimes you can’t understand what he is saying or can’t understand what language he is singing in (like in the intro, I had to listen it like 5 times to understand it is French), but in general the vocals are also great and one of the better I have heard in this year.
In conclusion, Wyrd is one of the albums I would spend money to buy, and it is a great album.
Himinbjorg Official Website
Himinbjorg Facebook
Himinbjorg Bandcamp
