The Wild Hunt (https://wildhunt.org/tag/heavy-metal)
The Midgardsblot festival, taking place each August in Borre, just south of Oslo, Norway, has slowly but surely become ubiquitous among Viking nerds, Norse Pagans, and metalheads alike. With its unique blend of extreme Metal and nordic folk acts (among others), alongside numerous artistic and academic entertainment acts, it was only a matter of time that I checked it out for myself.
This is why I no longer wear the hammer in public. There’s just too much darkness lurking below the surface, across the board.
Lyonel Perabo provides a brief overview of three subgenres of heavy metal music of interest to Pagan listeners – folk, Viking, and Pagan metal – and offers TWH’s very own heavy metal playlist.
Except that what I heard then were no musical notes. These were sounds of the earth. Crackling; slowly rumbling; like a fissure opening up on the ocean floor; or a mountain growing, or a volcano awakening after millennia of stillness. The music had not even started that I was already captivated.
As both musician and writer, I’m drawn to Odin as an embodiment of the creative force. As a practitioner of Ásatrú, I can’t support companies that steal the work of human artists to generate disposable dross.