NOIDVA
Windseller

In 2020, NÔIDVA arrived with the full-length Windseller. A then-brand-new entity, the Finns featured members of labelmates SACRIFICIUM CARMEN and RIIVAUS. Although detectably Finnish black metal in sound and style, NÔIDVA uniquely focused on Laplandish shamanism - and now they return to further flesh out that vision.

Tellingly titled Lappish Shatanism, NÔIDVA's second album bears many of the same traits as its predecessor: a mysticism both magickal and more so folkloric, and a melodicism that stirs the more courageous side of one's spirit rather than immediate and irrevocable bloodlust. However, despite featuring the same four-piece lineup, Lappish Shatanism heads toward rougher, daresay-rowdier territory - more earth and dirt rather than the atmospheric undercurrents of Windseller - with that rowdiness rendering their folk affectations all the more austere and severe. Still, NÔIDVA reveal themselves to be astute practitioners of tradition, poignantly imparting a favorably late '90s aspect in form and feel; whether one wants to qualify it as "pagan" black metal matters not when faced with such stellar quality. Leads prominent but parceled out, Lappish Shatanism is thus a work of undeniable passion - never belabored, but refreshing as it is reverential. The past is still alive across Lapland!