The sound they have built is harder to pin down than it first appears. Yes, there are war drums. Yes, there are chants in ancient languages and the haunting scrape of a tagelharpa. But underneath all that, there is genuine electronic pulse, trance architecture, and a rhythmic physicality that pulls you off the fence and onto the floor whether you planned to be there or not. What makes EIHWAR genuinely distinctive is that the mythology is not decorative. The philological research is real, the symbolism is considered, and the whole project holds together as a constructed world rather than an aesthetic mood board. Wild, committed, and more emotionally precise than the war paint might suggest.
“Hugrheim“, out now via Season of Mist, is their fullest statement yet. The album takes its name from the tenth hidden world of Yggdrasil, a realm shaped by the Hugr, the forces of mind and spirit, from which Mark and Asrunn’s characters claim to originate. Across ten tracks and just over forty minutes, it maps that mythology with real precision and genuine emotional weight. Opener “Nauðiz” is the kind of track that lodges itself somewhere behind your sternum and refuses to leave, choral, percussive, and completely irresistible. “Freyja’s Calling” builds like a forge at full heat, while mid-album interlude “Skuggaríki” strips everything back to whispers and tagelharpa, sending the record into darker, more unsettling territory before “Hugrheim” itself arrives with a warrior’s confidence. The album closes with “Berserkr (Tim’s Memorial Version)“, voice and guitar only, a tribute to their friend and collaborator Tim K. Robb who passed in early 2025. It lands with the kind of quiet devastation that no amount of percussion could achieve.
For those yet to catch EIHWAR live, the Pagan Folk Nights headline run across Europe through March and April, with Mira Ceti of Heilung in support, is the immediate opportunity. Warsaw’s Proxima on 7 April is the closest call for Polish audiences, with several dates across the continent already sold out, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Berlin, Ljubljana, Mulhouse and Brussels among them. But if June works better, there is another reason to head to the coast. EIHWAR will bring “Hugrheim” to Mystic Festival at Gdańsk Stocznia on 5 June, sharing a bill with Megadeth, Mastodon, Behemoth, Anthrax and over ninety other acts across four days in one of Europe’s most atmospheric festival settings. A pagan dancefloor inside an industrial shipyard, with war drums echoing off cranes. Odin, frankly, would approve.
Tracklist:
01. Nauðiz (04:28)
02. Freyja's Calling (03:41)
03. Ein (03:42)
04. Skuggaríki (04:01)
05. Hugrheim (03:19)
06. Ljósgarðr (03:27)
07. Heill Óðinn (03:36)
08. The Lake of the Dead (03:39)
09. Omenotharena (Warrior's Training) (05:41)
10. Berserkr (Tim's Memorial Version) (04:26)
