Description

Blue vinyl with printed innersleeve. Limited 600 copies

When Ragnarok emerged at the scene with their demos in 1994 and 1995 it showed a band with tons of potential and a band that many thought would be huge if they just got all the pieces of the puzzle right. Their debut album Nattferd (1995) kept that raw feeling of the demos but the album never really was that well received. Ragnarok was part of that second wave of Norwegian black metal acts and many wrote them off as just being copycats of whats the major Norse black metal bands already had done for a few years. So what we have here is a big chunk of true Norwegian black metal that could have only been released in that particular place, during that particular period of time. The band however wrote lyrics about things Nordic, first in line along with Enslaved, Ulver and Borknagar, to bring down the hammer on Satan in favor of Norse themes both in the lyric department and the music department. There’s a general sense of epicness scattered along the album, especially in the last metal track, conveniently titled Ragnarok, which describes the events that are to go down after the three year winter. It’s epic, addictive and fairly emotional. So in the end the bands debut was pure, unadulterated, True Norwegian Black Metal and back in 1995, when the re-vindication of all things Nordic in metal was still a new and exciting idea, and what better place than Norway, and what better genre than black metal, to celebrate Norse mythology, folklore and tradition? They had it all. The perfect name. The perfect themes. The perfect melodies. They had everything needed to become a household name in black metal. So what happened? Was it the admittedly cheesy cover art? Was the album eclipsed by the also admittedly more incredible debuts by Enslaved, Ulver and Borknagar? No matter what after this album, they threw it all away and went for a more polished version of black metal with keyboards.

Track list:
1. Intro
2. Pagan Land
3. Age Of Pride
4. From The Darkest Deep
5. Daudens Natt
6. The Norse Winter Demon
7. Hammerens Slag
8. Minner Om Svunne Tider
9. Ex Vinterland I Nord
10. Ragnorak
11. Nattferd – Outro