78. Hjelvik - 'Welcome to Hel'

The return of Kvelertak’s man mountain of a former vocalist. For his solo debut he has gone heavy and Nordic. Viking Mythology is front and centre here and drives every track. Surprisingly this is far less accessible than the three albums he did with Kvelertak. The chugging rock n’ roll heart has been ripped out and replaced with something far darker and impenetrable. It takes Norwegian Black and Swedish Death Metals and forges them together to create something equally primal and guttural. This is not a pretty record and it will alienate plenty of those that were won over by Kvelertak’s bouncy black n’ roll. However, what it does, it does well, and it is just great to see a personality as large and charismatic as Erlend Hjelvik’s back on the block.