Interviews About Albums: BOLVERK - Uaar (2022)

1. What can you say about this new EP/CD?

:BOLVERK: is:

Bass - Christopher “Rammr” Rakkestad (Elvarhøi, Jordskip, ex. Ragnarok)

Drums - Lucass “Yautja” Edquist (Gnida, ex. Mork)

Vocals - Bjørn “Narrenschiff” Holter (Images at Twilight, ex. Illnath, ex. Aasmegin)

Guitars - Thomas Bolverk (Under the Oak, Welcome to Hell, ex. Ragnarok, ex.

Images at Twilight, ex. Darkness, ex. Black Currant etc…)

We play EXTREME NORWEGIAN METAL aiming to be as sad and melodic as Solstafir in one end and as brutal as Marduk in the other. 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” 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.

2. What is the meaning of the EP/CD name?

The name of the band, :BOLVERK:, is originally one of Odin’s personas from Norse mythology. He used the name Bolverk when he went out to steal the mead of poetry, and there was a lot of blood splatter and killing in the process. Later adaptations see the word used as a description for something solid and impenetrable. We even have it in our local dialect as “bælværk” where it means something like a big, sturdy uniformly mass. Anyway, all this, maybe apart from the uniformly mass, are things that comply with our music. Melody, poetry, brutality, tightness, and a sturdy and down-to-earth attitude.

The title of the album, “Uaar”, means a bad year in the older Norwegian language. This was usually used when the crops failed and people starved. It fits well with the state of the world for the last two years, we think.

3. Which one is the composer of the CD/EP?

A typical :BOLVERK: song usually starts with guitars. I pick some riffs I have lying around and try to put them together in interesting sequences. I send this first draft to the guys, and we work with the arrangement until we are sure they are interesting. Our songs are relatively long, so it’s important to keep the listener’s attention all the way through. When the arrangement is finished, we start by recording drums, then guitars and bass, and eventually the vocals. We usually have all the music ready before we start working on the vocals. In these modern times, we also record everything in different places, but make sure that mixing and mastering is well taken care of by our old accomplice Magnus “Devo” Andersson of Endarker Studio, Sweden.

4. If you have to pick one song, which one would you pick?

That is going to be very hard, as I think all of them are good and interesting and we obviously wouldn’t have released them otherwise. As I am a sucker for a good chorus though, I think it would have to be “Sectarian Bloodshed” if I was to pick only one. I really like the chorus on that one and it’s difficult not to sing along. That’s why the chorus is repeated five times in the song and the guys kinda tease me for that, he, he… Apart from the chorus, it’s probably worth to mention that the song is about David Koresh and the siege in Waco, Texas 1993. He was an American cult leader of an offshoot of the Davidian Seventh-day Adventists and the siege ended in a bloodbath.

5. Is there a special message in this EP/CD? If there is what it is?

This is not a concept album or anything like that, and there isn’t a special message or a theme of the entire album but rather smaller separate ones. We aren’t a political band or a band that feels we are in a position to tell other people how to live their lives, but we do make the odd comment and snide remark about stuff that matters to us. That can for instance be; the state of the world, the state of the human mind, or religion. We like people to think for themselves…be leaders, not followers.

6. Are there some lyrics that you ́d love to share?

There are really no lyrics that I want to highlight especially, but I can say a bit about all of them. The title-song Uaar is about the bad couple of years that are behind us because of Covid 19. It’s not directly apparent maybe, but that’s the inspiration for it, at least. As for other topics, we take a critical look at religion in Bride of Christ, Sectarian Bloodshed, and Svovelpredikant. With Prevail in Silence, the title is kind of self-explanatory...you might as well just keep quiet because those who make the decisions in the world only listen to their own voices anyway. Death the Whore tells about all the empty words that have been spoken about the after-life. Chaos is a constant state of mind for a modern-thinking human in Time for Chaos and From the Depths describes the depravity of your soul even if you are keeping up appearances.

7. Which inspirations haven been important for this album? Like musically or friends, family, someone you'd love to thank especially?

There are a lot of different influences behind the music of BOLVERK: Everything from Classic Rock, Progressive Rock...to Thrash Metal, Death Metal, and Black Metal including everything in between. I often find that my mood dictates what kind of music I listen to. I like a lot of different music, but it’s all about time and place. One day it can be Magnum...the next day it can be Dissection. I have probably forgotten most of the music I’ve listened to lately, but I recently picked up KVAENs two albums...excellent stuff. I also completed my collection of NOCTURN SLAUGHTER CULT, and listened a lot to the three latest DEATHSPELL OMEGA and the two latest THULCANDRA. I did a bit of a dive into the catalog of OBSCURA and CATTLE DECAPITATION...and so on. Do you get my point? A lot of different stuff... Apart from that, we are of course always grateful to all the people who support all the stupid stuff we do...partners, parents, kids, friends...

8. Something to add?

Thank you for spending your precious time listening to and writing about :BOLVERK:. We are eternally grateful. Thank you for supporting the scene. We are all in this together!