Written By Kevin McSweeney
Danheim Urblod: Ritual Chant and Norse Creation Myth
With “Urblod,” Danish Nordic folk project Danheim goes hunting for the world that existed before Odin’s reign. Released through Season of Mist, the single turns toward the Jötnar of Norse creation lore, pairing ritual chanting with drums and shadowy electronic textures. It is an intriguing direction for an artist whose music has long been concerned with the mythic past.
DANHEIM is the solo project of Copenhagen producer Reidar Schæfer Olsen, who has spent a decade building Nordic folk and Viking-age atmosphere out of electronic production. Since 2016 the project has passed a billion streams and placed music across multiple seasons of Vikings, all without ever playing a live show.
“Urblod” pulls the project back before the gods, into the cosmology that predates them. The chant is built around the Jötnar—Ymir, Bergelmir, Þrúðgelmir, Bölþorn, Bestla, Hræsvelgr—figures Olsen treats not as monsters but as the older, untamed forces from which both gods and giants emerge. Percussion and layered vocal chant carry the track’s ritual weight, set against the ambient drones and field-recording textures that have defined Danheim’s sound since the beginning, here pushed toward something starker and more primal than the mood-first approach of last year’s Heimferd. Where that album worked by instinct, “Urblod” works by lineage: it reaches for creation myth, ancestry, and the wilderness underneath the ordered Norse world, and treats them as source material rather than backdrop.
The point isn’t simply to conjure another Viking-era atmosphere. Danheim’s “Urblod” reaches back to the figures at the foundations of Norse cosmology, placing primordial forces, not heroic gods, at the center of the music.
Tracklist:
1. Urblod
Line-up:
Reidar Schæfer Olsen — Musician, Songwriter, Producer & Singer
Follow Danheim:
Website: https://danheimmusic.com/
Travelling Merchant: https://danheim.travelling-
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/danheim
Bandcamp: https://danheim.bandcamp.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@
SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/
Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/
YouTube Music: https://music.youtube.com/
Deezer: https://www.deezer.com/artist/11662773
About The Author
Kevin McSweeney is Metal Lair’s resident scribe of the underground, eternally rummaging through the global metal scene for riffs worth your time.
As the guiding hand behind Seven Deadly Songs every Friday, he has an uncanny knack for finding the track you didn’t know you needed, usually before finishing his pint.
Equal parts loyal, kind, and quietly razor-witted, Kevin brings deep knowledge, impeccable taste, and a steady, reliable presence to Metal Lair.
Read More From This Author:
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THE COLLAPSE OF A BITTER END ALBUM REVIEW: THE CARTOGRAPHER
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EP Review: Beyond The New Horizon by iAtlas
ALBUM REVIEW: GREEN CARNATION – A DARK POEM, PART III: THE MESSIAH COMPLEX
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