This latest, nine track, album (The Secret Barbarous Names) is a purely vocal work, inspired by the Draconian and Typhonian traditions. The title refers to the hidden meaning of the many manuscripts that have been kept secret for millenia: words of power uttered at such frequencies as to animate anything.

Opening with the Mantra For VR-Hekav you are met by the deep timbre of the vocal immediately, there is ritual and solemnity in this from the word go. As the tracks expands over the near 5 minutes there is a subtle and dark magnificence to the piece that turns quickly over to “Mantra for Khepr – TA”. The slow motion and heaviness from just the voice is spellbinding. You quickly find yourself party to a ceremony of unequal power.

As each track moves on, the one thing that strikes me is the monolithic quality of the vocals. The deep rumbling tones where the cracking of the sound is heard almost as wood being broken in ultra slow motion. This is highlighted on such tracks as Lvnar Kala Sona with the drone pulling the vocals into line as we march slowly onwards.

Each piece has a huge resonance and timbre to it, there is so much depth to this, the very core of your being is forced to listen and understand the magick as is it unfolds. You feel like you are in a huge vaulted and cavernous temple as these various rituals and ceremonies take place. The air is stifling and cloying with heat and incense as the holy ones command and invoke the spirits as each is pulled screaming to our plane of reality.

Dark Ambient albums have become somewhat used to a tried and testedroute. Nordvargr is moving further along a slightly less well known path.A path that I think Lustmord began to take us on with his album “The Word As Power”. Nordvargr has overtake this album with the sheer depth of “The Secret Barbarous Names”.