Mourn the death of days
We had the nights
I started listening to Myrkur several years ago, mostly to find out what had all the misogynist metalheads up in arms to the point of relentlessly sending this woman death threats—but it stayed quite casual, as her first two records aren’t quite my jam… but then came Folkesange. Her third record diverted from the previous black metal style, and consisted entirely of acoustic renditions of Scandinavian folk songs played on period instruments and sung with clean vocals—it was instant love. It made up a large part of my pandemic soundtrack, and I was determined to see her the next time she came to town, which wasn’t until the release of Spine, her fourth record—undeniably a rather unique yet successful blend of much of what has gone before.
The support act was Jonathan Hultén, a Swedish singer-songwriter with a voice like tree sap and songs to serenade the forest spirits, who looked like a beautiful Victorian drag queen in mourning, or an intricate Japanese woodcut come to life. His record is called Chants From Another Place, and that’s exactly what his music sounds like; the atmospheric waves of vocal layers and harmonies and his commitment to his artistry were utterly captivating.
Myrkur’s stage was decorated with carpets of fake grass, her monitor and cables were hidden in shrubs, with vines and flowers climbing up and across her keyboard and microphone stand… funereal! I felt the initial distorted, droning guitar noise vibrating through my bones, a sound which then morphed into Bålfærd, Danish for “Viking funeral”, an instrumental intro track.
Amalie came on stage in a black floor-length dress with a metallic spine detail stitched onto the front, and her vocalizations… they stunned me. Her voice was so pure, of such pristine clarity—miles above her studio records, on which she already sounds angelic as it is. The first part of the show was the first six tracks off Spine, back to back—Like Humans, Mothlike, My Blood Is Gold, the title track, and Valkyriernes Sang, and seeing them come to life was a real revelation.
She’s admirably uninterested in being boxed up by genre constraints, and if there’s one thing I have a ton of respect for, outcome notwithstanding, it’s an artist confidently evolving their sound regardless (or even in spite) of what their fan base wants or expects. Experiencing the Spine songs live made me see the unique yet cohesive combination of catchy synth-pop/shoegaze with a backbone of metal that threads through this record… sound shifting like tectonic plates.
She moved to the keyboard for My Blood Is Gold and Spine, which were both beautiful like the night, the latter among my favorite performances of the evening. The perhaps biggest surprise for me was Valkyriernes Sang though, my least favorite on the record—I find the blast beats that overpower everything else to be quite silly, in all honesty. They were still present live, of course, but her voice, merging with her bassist and backing vocalist’s Maja Shining, managed to soar above them, and it gave me chills—made me feel like I was riding off to Valhalla!
After that, she reached back in time for a song triplet off her first two records: Dybt i skoven from her debut album, followed by two absolute highlights off Mareridt: The Serpent, a crowd favorite judging by the reaction, in which she gave off slithering vibes as threatening as they were seductive, and Crown, which to my mind is what it would sound like if Lana Del Rey embraced the darkness. Then, back to Spine, of which she’d kept the best two tracks for last: An electrifying Blazing Sky, and my favorite, the haunting Devil in the Detail. I had resigned myself to the fact that no Folkesange track had made it onto this tour’s setlist… but over the past few shows leading up to mine, first one, and then another had crept in.
For the first, she invited Jonathan Hultén back on stage to accompany her on guitar for her version of House Carpenter, a popular English ballad from the 17th century. Everything about this performance, from Hultén’s finger-picking to Amalie’s rich vocals, was just stunning. Next up, she introduced a song I hadn’t been familiar with—her interpretation of a traditional Danish folk song from the 1600s that very well could have fit Folkesange—Bonden og kragen, in which a farmer who shot a crow recounts a very long list of unrealistic things he plans to do with each part of the carcass. The main set ended with a second offering from Folkesange: The beautiful Leaves of Yggdrasil, which featured an eerie kulning intro, the ancient Scandinavian herding call.
The encore consisted of two more offerings off Mareridt. Ulvinde is her most popular song to date, and showcases her dynamic vocal range really well… but live, she went for a high operatic sound rather than the original’s black metal scream—I actually loved it! I don’t doubt that she’s fully capable of still delivering one if she were so inclined, but it would have been rather jarring in the context of this set, and I love that she made adjustments to make the show feel like a cohesive whole, instead of just playing the “classic hit” as the fans probably expect and want it.
The final song of the evening, closing a tight but perfectly satisfying 75 minute set, was a bonus track which had never been performed live before this tour: Death of Days, ending the show as it had begun, with a funeral. I only saw happy faces on my way out—it seems that the days of controversy have been left behind, or at the very least in the Youtube comment section. From the start of her musical career as Myrkur, Amalie has confidently been carving her own path, following it to wherever it has taken her with her artistic integrity intact, and I respect that enough to continue to check out where her inspiration will take her from here.
Setlist
Bålfærd
Like Humans
Mothlike
My Blood Is Gold
Spine
Valkyriernes sang
Dybt i skoven
The Serpent
Crown
Blazing Sky
Devil in the Detail
House Carpenter (feat. Jonathan Hultén)
Bonden og kragen
Leaves of Yggdrasil» E n c o r e «
Ulvinde
Death of Days
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