apanthropy

Hulder
Verbolgen
20 Buck Spin
To Be Released: August 7th, 2026

Rating: 9/10

“The urgency and the battle lust of previous efforts is still there, but the atmosphere is darker, the sense of the ancient and the medieval is far deeper and more pronounced. There is a caliginous sensation of sorrow, intertwined and tight to the point of drawing blood, that drapes the entire record.”

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1 – Drie Raven (Intro)
2 – The Crowning
3 – Thy Binding Oath
4 – Verbolgen
5 – …And We Shall Sing
6 – In Blood and In Earth
7 – Den Nacht Zijn Lied
8 – View from Nemeton
9 – The Glow of Dawn
–

The Pacific Northwest region of the United States has been a hotbed of extreme music for decades now. A potent underground scene managed to chart a path out from under the shadow of grunge, one that became international in its power. Agalloch, Wolves in the Throne Room, Ceremonial Castings, and others, led a charge from the deep, swarmed and crushed through brazen sound, trumpeted the rise of a new identity in extreme music, loosely described as Cascadian black metal. From 1998 and forward, the rain, the mountains, the forests, and the jagged rocks of the coast ingrained themselves into the aural textures of the music spun by its artists. Entering the early 2000s and beyond, the Pacific Northwest steeled itself and produced a steady stream of high-powered underground artists, more diversified as it matured, acts such as Uada, Cirrhus, and Ebony Pendant attacked on one front, as bands such as Warp Chamber, Ritual Necromancy, and Tithe attacked from another. One of the bands to emerge from the firestorm of talent was Hulder.

Established in 2018, the evolution of Hulder is an interesting thing to examine closely. Ascending the Raven Stone, the project’s debut EP, was a modest 18 minutes in length with only 100 tapes produced. Grim and cold black metal, riff-forward, borrowing heavy from the Scandinavian palette of the mid-1990s, Hulder, as an artist, immediately began to separate herself from the conventional pack. It was the European black metal tradition, transplanted into the Pacific Northwest via the western coast. While other bands were flirting with “post-black” and shoegaze tonality, Hulder wandered off into isolation. While other bands became overly polished, or focused more on aesthetics than songwriting, or began using recycled tropes from second-wave black metal, Hulder opted to craft something that was true to her spirit, on her own terms, using her own creative strengths and weaknesses. It felt different for its time; something that embraced rawness without descending into sonic corniness, something that felt cloaked in mystery, something that teemed with medieval atmosphere.

The journey from Ascending the Raven Stone has been steady and consistent. Over these last eight years, Hulder has gone on to release several demos, three EPs, three full-lengths, and multiple singles. The project moved from the studio to the stage, with additions of various live musicians throughout the years, leading to the project taking on the role of headliner for the 2024 installment of the Decibel Magazine Tour, completing the trek alongside Devil Master, Worm, and Necrofier.

Remember, this all started with 100 tapes…

Hulder has steadily advanced as a composer and as an artist of deep sonic texture. The band’s last endeavor, 2024’s Verse in Oath was a mix of the bleak, the enigmatic, and the barbarous. It blended the heavy with the ancient, it was exceptionally paced, and tracks such as ‘Boughs Ablaze,’ ‘Vessel of Suffering,’ and ‘Enchanted Steel’ represented a stark level of straightforward heaviness that was convincing and authentic. As a musician grows through experience, practice, and discipline, it’s like a painter getting a new color to work with; their creative universe expands, the power to create something from nothing becomes less chaotic, and a new image, a new work of art, can come to life.

The newest offering from Hulder, entitled Verbolgen, due out August 7th through 20 Buck Spin, feels like a natural evolutionary step. It doesn’t strike with the juvenilia logic of “we have to perform faster; we have to tune lower.” It feels like something coming to genesis that is deeply sincere and honest. Verbolgen doesn’t necessarily come off as being ‘heavier’ than previous releases, but that’s not the objective. The next step wasn’t “faster/heavier.” It was to expand the creative narrative, to turn the artist’s vision into an eagle-eyed gaze, Verses in Oath, and much of the earlier material, really explored the primal intensity and animalistic fury one can invoke through this music. Verbolgen takes on a more deliberate execution. The songs, many of which are between five to seven minutes in length, are allowed to spark, ignite, and spread in each direction. The urgency and the battle lust of previous efforts is still there, but the atmosphere is darker, the sense of the ancient and the medieval is far deeper and more pronounced. There is a caliginous sensation of sorrow, intertwined and tight to the point of drawing blood, that drapes the entire record. Chord voicings and progressions seem richer and denser than previous efforts and the production isn’t as sharp and separated as Verses in Oath. There is a faint element of keyboards and folk-style instrumentation that you can find buried under the soil of the compositions, it doesn’t take center stage, it doesn’t demand to do so, it passes through the tracks like a spirit through the forest.

‘Drie Raven’ serves as a brief introductory instrumental that leans deep into ancient folk tones and serves as a glimpse of what lay beyond. It is dreary, melancholic, and the drones that cast their unbroken and breathless sound serve as captivating backdrops to the melodic exhibition. There is something spiritual to it, but not something of religiosity; something of nature, something of isolation, something draped in emerald green and rusty orange.

‘The Crowning’ enters with galloping double-bass and deep churning tremolo chords. The riff crafting is serene and somber, leading into the first verse. Vocals are clear and pronounced but not overproduced and the volume level allows for perfect blending. The guitar tone has an almost ‘distant’ feeling to it in the mid-range, not necessarily reverb-based, but it feels spectral and the first time it moves into the lower ranges, there is a sharp contrast where the deeper pitch comes on as immensely thick and menacing in comparison to the rather entrancing mid-range. Higher pitches – lead melodies, soloing – takes an almost razor-like feel, like the sharp edge of a broken piece of fogged mirror. Clean vocals, delivered in a divinatory-style spoken word narrative, merge with Hulder’s raspy low gutturals. Keyboards only appear where it feels right – not in a compositional sense – but in a sense of emotional feel; brief at times, always highly effective though. The later third of the track gives a taste of what to expect in terms of direct intensity and musical ferocity throughout the rest of the record.

The expansive length of the songs allows extensive bridges and melodic passages, many are taken advantage of, and all generally serve their respective tracks well.

The tempo and feel changes moving into ‘Thy Binding Oath,’ which slows things down and allows the invocation of a majestic atmosphere, one that feels straight out of the medieval. The vocal techniques range from graceful hymnal-style singing to gravel-throated delivery in contrast, often stacked on top of one another, but never becoming overburdensome.

The title track swings in a more visceral direction. Straightforward grinding black metal in the band’s early traditional flavoring and tone. Shorter in length, more concentrated on a central musical idea, the track runs a gauntlet of tempos and emotional ranges. The drumming deserves mention, as the generous amount of cymbal splashes that pepper the rhythm patterns are always tastefully placed, giving as much prominence to the high end of the kit as to the low end of the kit.

Some of the best composing on Verbolgen appears in the core of the record, ‘…And We Shall Sing’ and ‘In Blood and In Earth’ are both monumental long-form tracks that exemplify the progression Hulder has made as a songwriter. The pacing is genuine, running a range from dark folk to grinding black death, from the slower tempos to the more rancorous ones. Moving quickly against the listener, but not the song. It ebbs and flows, transitions into extensions of narratives, matrixes of riffs, and atmospheric invocation. Keyboards serve ‘In Blood and In Earth’ particularly well.

Into the deepest fortress hold of the record – the final three tracks – the listener is brought the full bloom of sonic colors Hulder produces. ‘Den Nacht Zijn Lied,’ at times, moves into periods of pure second-wave inferno, just powerful riffs; simplistic in structure, but arranged in the most violently efficient manner possible. There are moments that feel windswept and epic, periods in which layers of guitar work together in rhythm, melody, and solo perfectly. ‘View from Nemeton’ is the final push of true motivated aggression, it is an unbroken killchain of riffing, changing pace comfortably and organically, moving like a fluid. This is one of the songs from Verbolgen that would translate well into the live environment. ‘The Glow of Dawn’ is exactly as stated. It is slow rise of the light over the horizon; droning melancholic riffing mixed with a battery of keyboard melodies. It feels vertical, it feels epic, like the close of a ritual or the change of a season. It is a smart move musically, to end the record in this manner. Much like night must end, the listener must come back from out of the dreadful and pale world created through the songs that came prior, and ‘The Glow of Dawn’ does exactly that.

With nine songs at 49 minutes, this is a relatively extensive album when compared to Verses in Oath, which was one track longer but eight minutes shorter. The amount of depth and detail – the layering of sounds – is not something one will fully pick up on the first playthrough. Multiple playthroughs bring new details and new colors with each pass. Each track could serve a purpose in future live shows, there is nothing substantially weak on Verbolgen, sonically, and any piece of this work could be placed anywhere in the setlist and still hold its power.

The songwriting evolution of Hulder has been an interesting thing to hear and witness. Verbolgen, serving as the project’s next chapter, is the addition that was needed to the band’s discography. It shows a fixed focus on creative expression, expansive songwriting, competent understanding of atmosphere, and vicious execution.

Verbolgen is the most expansive and sonically rich music the project has produced to date, and the production and mix are perfectly fit to elevate the music. With each passing release, Hulder moves closer to the center of the abyss, becoming a name that is respected, one that is coming close to echoing through the halls of eternity, becoming a musical entity whose work will outlive those who created it.

Remember, this all started with 100 tapes…

Give Verbolgen plenty of time, it’s a worthy expedition into the ancient and funereal.

Check out Apanthropy’s review of Verses in Oath, from February of 2024, here.

Label: 20 Buck Spin
Band: Hulder

AJK