Vingulmork — Krigserklæring (Official Lyric Video)
Vingulmork is a blackened thrash band from Oslo that went quiet for seven years and came back with a track that literally means declaration of war. Krigserklæring opens the campaign for Barmhjertighetens Fallitt, their fourth album, out since 11 September on Crime Records, Likskue and Schattenpfade. Norwegian black metal bite with thrash drive, and the long silence only sharpened it.
Seven years of silence, and the first word out of their mouths means declaration of war. You do not pick Krigserklæring as your comeback single by accident.
Vingulmork formed in Oslo in 2013 and spent their first years building a blend that never respected the genre borders: rooted in Norwegian black metal, but with the drive of thrash and the weight of death metal pushing it forward. Reviewers reach for Dissection and Old Man’s Child as reference points, which tells you where the melodies sit. After the EP Avgrunn in 2019 the band went quiet, and most bands that go quiet for seven years stay quiet.
Instead they returned with Barmhjertighetens Fallitt, their fourth record and by their own account the darkest and most ambitious thing they have made. Twelve tracks, out since 11 September on Crime Records, Likskue and Schattenpfade, with Krigserklæring sitting mid-album like a hinge. The album title translates as the bankruptcy of mercy, and the music holds up its end of that promise: riff-driven, bitter, and melodic in the way Norwegian bands are melodic, where the tune is there to make the cold cut deeper.
This is exactly the corner of Norway we keep coming back to, the working underground below the famous names: Mork carrying the torch solo, Enslaved still experimenting three decades in, and now Vingulmork proving a seven-year hiatus can end in a war footing. Play it loud and watch for the solo.
Listen to this: Barmhjertighetens Fallitt on Bandcamp