Nechochwen – Spelewithiipi Review

By Killjoy

It can be healthy for artists to periodically take time to reset and remember what first compelled them to start creating music. Aaron Carey originally founded Nechochwen in West Virginia as an unostentatious acoustic guitar project paying homage to his Native American lineage. It didn’t take long for black metal influence to emerge and with the addition of Andrew D’Cagna as the rhythm section, the two styles proved a potent pairing to explore the cultural history sewn into every note. 2015’s Heart of Akamon was well-received in the metal community and by our Vice Overlord Steel Druhm, who later went on to underrate their very good1 follow-up Kanawha Black. During all this time,2 Nechochwen had been quietly working on Spelewithiipi, a fully instrumental acoustic folk album akin to their debut full-length Algonkian Mythos. Can Nechochwen come full circle and revisit an older style without feeling like a step backward?

Nechochwen was always more inclined to reach for an acoustic guitar than an electric, but Spelewithiipi takes it a step further. Carey’s multi-tracked acoustic guitars enjoy near total exclusivity, plucking and strumming along like a bolder variation of older (and newer) October Falls. This is something of a double-edged sword—there is little to distract from the graceful guitar melodies, but the emotive burden of proof falling solely upon one instrument can be a challenging songwriting prospect. This may be why similar-minded neofolk albums from Thurnin and Wÿntër Ärvń in recent months opted to diversify with various other folk instrumentation, and Spelewithiipi follows suit, albeit sparingly. Here and there, indigenous drum beats (“Lenawe’owiin,” “Spelewithiipi,” “Primordial Passage”), a full drum kit (“Precipice of Stone”), and a gentle flute (“Lenawe’owiin,” “Spelewithiipi”) provide embellishment. This pared-back instrumentation is an important part of Spelewithiipi’s reverent, intimate nature.

At this point in his career, Carey can wring seemingly every ounce of breadth and depth from his weapon of choice. The acoustic guitar lines, usually appearing in pairs, flow and breathe as they fluctuate in intensity and complexity. Sometimes they’re straightforward, with clear lead and rhythm roles (“Nemacolin’s Path,” “Spelewithiipi”). Elsewhere, Nechochwen weaves multiple distinct melodies together into a more elegant soundscape (“Tpwiiwe,” “Precipice of Stone”). Unsurprisingly, the music is intrinsically bonded with nature, the rain sounds in “Othaškwa’alowethi behme” adding a mystical effect to the stream of twanging guitar notes. The best and most passionate performance lies in “Mthothwathiipi,” which features a gentle, cascading tune that gives way to vigorous fingerpicking laced with percussive slaps. The immense skill on display almost convinces me that Nechochwen might be better off in this unplugged realm.

Almost. Like a phantom limb, I find it impossible not to miss Nechochwen’s black metal side. In my view, their appeal mainly stemmed from the meticulous melding of acoustic folk with metal, not either component taken individually. Therefore, an attempt to decouple them was, perhaps, destined to yield a diminished result. Even setting aside genre preferences, Spelewithiipi lacks much of the structure and focus from when Nechochwen were grounded in black metal conventions. The first half of the record fares better thanks to more developed melodies, whereas the back half feels more barren and aimless (particularly “Primordial Passage”), but nearly every song suffers to some extent from rocky transitions or promising ideas cut short. With fewer musical handholds on Spelewithiipi, the overall songwriting needed to be more coherent and engaging to make up the difference.

Spelewithiipi is not an immediate album; it invites rather than seizes the listener’s attention. Accordingly, fans of Nechochwen’s recent work will likely need to manage expectations and exercise patience. As I spent time with it and let go of what I wanted to hear from Nechochwen, I gained greater appreciation of what they created. Aaron Carey plays heartfelt, stirring acoustic guitar lines the likes of which I’ve never heard before, and I’m in awe of his instrumental mastery. Yet, even the best guitarwork on Spelewithiipi is not quite as captivating as that of Heart of Akamon or Kanawha Black. This, plus the relinquishment of metal influence and its short 31-minute runtime, make it hard to see Spelewithiipi as a complete Nechochwen record. But, even so, this is still a pleasant walk through the woods worth taking.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 13 | Format Reviewed: 192 kbps mp3
Label: Nordvis Produktion
Websites: nechochwen-nordvis.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/nechochwen
Releases Worldwide: May 9th, 2025

#2025 #30 #AmericanMetal #DarkFolk #DarkNeofolk #Folk #Instrumental #May25 #Nechochwen #NordvisProduktion #NotMetal #OctoberFalls #Review #Reviews #Spelewithiipi #Thurnin #WÿntërÄrvń

Thurnin – Harmr Review

By Carcharodon

Dutch one-man project Thurnin were unknown to me before I snagged Harmr for review. Having now investigated, I see that I’m in for a subdued time. Following a similar, winding path to that walked by Wardruna’s Einar Selvik, Thurnin main minstrel Jurre Timmer wandered away from his black metal roots, corpse paint washing off in a Dutch downpour, to arrive in instrumental neofolk land. He has now taken up permanent residence there, with two albums under his belt as Thurnin, 2021’s Menhir, followed two years later by Útiseta. I am informed (whether reliably or not) by the promo blurb for this latest platter that the Icelandic word Harmr is now understood to mean ‘sorrow.’ However, Timmer adopts it as the title of his third album for the (apparently) older, more traditional sense of ‘grief.’ So, let us skip down the road, lute in hand, and see what Harmr has been done.

Ok, that was misleading. As far as I know, Thurnin makes no use of lutes on Harmr. Instead, the majority of the work is done by Timmer’s acoustic guitars, adorned by other strings, including violins and occasional pipes. The guitars are multi-tracked and densely layered, meaning that, despite being both instrumental (a few background vocal effects, like on “Arcturus,” aside) and largely percussion-free (save for “Heortece” and a few moments of “Eitr”), there are multiple layers to this tapestry. Whether one interprets Harmr as depicting sorrow or grief will, I suspect, come down to your own individual perception of those two words. For me, I lean more to the former. The soundscapes conjured on the album feel forlorn and melancholy, imbued with a sense of longing, but not the despair, desperation or hopelessness that I associate with grief.

As Harmr progresses, Thurnin confidently crafts and maintains the mood, its sombre tones resonating across the album’s full 42-minute run. There is something about it that reminds me of an accordion. Not in the sound—no accordions were Harmred, or used, in the making of this album—but in the breathy quality of the music. It almost feels like, track to track, the record in- and exhales, just as the air flows into an accordion, before being slowly expelled again. Perhaps breathing would be a better metaphor because Harmr feels very organic in its flow. The delicate, relatively stripped back notes of “Fylgja” or closer “Folkvangr” are at once notably different in mood from, but clearly belong alongside, the more urgent and insistent refrain of “Heortece” and the backend of “Eitr,” which feature the only percussion (it sounds like it’s probably a handheld drum along the lines of a bhodran) on the album.

Thurnin’s overall approach is perhaps best described as dreamlike. Harmr seems to slowly wander, weaving between moods and pacing without ever breaking the spell. For me, however, this is both the charm and Achilles heel of this album and indeed Thurnin’s prior releases. For all its richness of sound and compositional consistency, it also lacks differentiation. The absence of vocals and very limited use of percussion means that the album is crafted using a fairly limited palette, compared to the likes of Wardruna. Moreover, although there are changes in pacing (compare, for example, “Heortece” and “Fylgja”), these are relative, within the spectrum of what Thurnin does. That said, the production here is worthy of a callout, as Harmr sounds phenomenal. Although albums like this, without the backbone of drums, often seem to return high DR scores, the 11 here feels right. Its component parts breathe and sway like the wind-in-the-grass vibes that open “Folkvangr,” feeling rich enough to almost touch.

Harmr is one of those albums where I wish we didn’t give out scores or ratings. Whatever I choose will feel wrong, and mileage will likely vary significantly. On the one hand, Thurnin’s forlorn dark folk is expertly crafted and executed but on the other, it also feels a bit limited in scope. I find myself largely unable to recall individual moments, left instead with the overall sense and mood evoked by the album, but without any details. Above, I likened Harmr to a dream, and perhaps that intangibility is the epitome of this. Either way, I don’t see myself returning to this album often because, I suspect, its virtues will fade quickly. However, if I find myself listening to it, I will no doubt be borne away again, as I was the first time round.

Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 11 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Auerbach Tonträger
Websites: thurnin.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/ThurninFolk
Releases Worldwide: March 14th, 2025

#25 #2025 #AuerbachTonträger #DarkFolk #DarkNeofolk #DutchMetal #Folk #Harmr #Instrumental #Mar25 #NotMetal #Review #Reviews #Thurnin #Wardruna