Drungi – Hamfarir Hugans
Release Date: 5th April 2024
Label: Self Released
Bandcamp
Genre: Hard Rock, Black n Roll, Doom, Progressive, Viking Metal.
FFO: Gojira, Manowar, Sólstafir, Black sabbath, Skálmöld.
Review By: Rick Farley
Hailing from the shores of Reykjavík, Iceland comes hard rock/metal band Drungi. Formed in 2019 and celebrating their fifth year together as a band, this self-released debut album Hamfarir Hugans is dropping April 5th, 2024. Bringing an interesting mix of rock, black n roll and doom metal that takes elements from all three genres and conjures up an infectious hard rock/metal album for those of you that just want to cut loose with your basic intrinsic musical urges. Fiercely primal, raw, full of hooks, and chunky grooves, Drungi looks to shake your foundations to the core.
Hamfarir Hugans is slightly progressive with traces of Viking metal, folk and meditative psychedelic segments strung about, the album is both hazy and aggressively rhythmic. Sludgy guitar riffs, bouncy tempos, and mostly harsh vocals with tons of hard rock flavoured edginess to get your head and body moving. The album starts off with a bassline and guitar accents that sound inspired by Tool, at least until the guitars fully kick in. Alda sways with a coolness that pounds the riff upside your skull, feeling like uneasy waves crashing the side of your boat. Nearly impossible to not scream along with and bang your head in metal glory. Tracks like Þoka toe the line between doomy, thrashy and mystical. Slowly building a tension from the eerie guitar passage and harsh spoken word until it explodes into an up-tempo crunchy pace, while Frost has an undeniable Gojira like swagger that just crushes with style. Growls, roars, and throaty singing keeps this track interesting, while catchy heavy guitars and tribalistic drum patterns transition from section to section. The closing track Myrkur which translates to dark, is exactly that, dark and ominous. Plodding along at a sluggish, heavy pace with frosty guitar leads overtop.
Each song on Hamfarir Hugans is inspired by Icelandic nature and tackles the subject of the struggles that many people deal with on a daily basis, such as deep-rooted mental health problems that have plagued every one of us in one form or another. Lyrically everything is sung or growled in Icelandic which connects the band further to the harsh environments of which they havegrown up with. Regardless of native tongue, Drungi hopes Hamfarir Hugans will resonate with people on a much deeper level than just understanding of their language. In this regard, many of the albums forty-eight minutes achieve this with recognizable fervent emotions and trance like atmospheres. But sadly, it is cut right down the middle of the album’s length. Packed with several great moments and while it feels refreshingly genuine, the density of the album begins to wear before the end is in sight. Not every song hits the mark, though, with some odd choices that stifle the momentum. It feels like filler and when it picks back up it has already taken too long to get back on track, only to slightly derail again, which loses me fairly quickly. When it’s hitting on all cylinders, it is outstanding and quite unique, but honestly the album would have greatly improved with ten or so minutes of self-editing. This is certainly not a bad album, and I encourage you to check it out for yourself. I just feel it could have been so much better.
(3 / 5)
