Perhaps I haven’t been paying much attention until recently, but blackened heavy metal seems to be making its mark on extreme metal more and more; maybe Tribulation’s opus Children of the Night was the first strange gateway to beckon me towards this metal subgenre. Taking heavy metal instrumental techniques and throwing black metal vocals on top is all fine and good, but isn’t a lot more possible? Cirkeln takes up this challenge with sword in hand on third full-length The Primitive Covenant; trading in the epic atmosphere of past releases in favor of (as the album title might suggest) a more primordial take on black metal, this album transports the listener to an ancient realm where black, thrash, and heavy metal were one. Revel in its glory and prepare to bang your head to hell and back.

Cirkeln is a band that’s been on my radar for a few years now, ever since the Stormlander EP and debut full-length Kingdoms That No One Remembers both dropped just a few months apart back in 2020. Taking clear musical inspiration from the epic sagas of Viking-era Bathory, it was a great blend of black, doom, and heavy metal against a backdrop of swords and sorcery (Tolkien being the most obvious influence) — after being unceremoniously dropped from their first label for the “extremism” of wanting to be featured on Antifascist Black Metal Network, they managed to finally find a home in True Cult Records who released sophomore album A Song to Sorrow just last year. So how does this solo project of one Våndarr fare on The Primitive Covenant? Even if I prefer the grander scale of earlier material, it’s still a hell of a good time.

Opener “Garden of Thorns” retains a lot of the atmosphere characteristic of Cirkeln’s earlier work (replete with some bombastic choral vocals in its climax), but the album takes a sharp turn from then on out. “The Witch Bell” alternates between a first wave black metal assault and pounding doom, with the Quorthon-esque rasps traded for gruff shouts — this change in vocal styles continues throughout much of the album. Going even further back to the influences on nascent extreme metal, “Ensam i natt” is a cover of Swedish punk band The Leather Nun; bet you wouldn’t have guessed that to appear on an album with Boromir defending Merry and Pippin from orc hordes on the cover!

While pretty front-heavy in terms of quality, — and not the direction I would’ve chosen for Cirkeln to pursue — this is nevertheless a fun album made with lots of reverence for what made metal great in the first place. Crushing riffs straight out of the early days of metal, skank beats giving way to blackened blasts, twin guitar leads, and plenty of headbanging moments; if any of the above sounds like your thing, look no further. Hold the hammer high!

— Colin

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The Primitive Covenant is available now on True Cult Records. For more information on Cirkeln, visit their Facebook page.