Country of origin:United States
Location:Atlanta, Georgia
Status:Active

Formed in:2008
Genre:Atmospheric Black Metal
Lyrical themes:Norse Mythology, Heathenism, Nordic Magic (early); The Void, Nature (later)
Current label:Unsigned/independent
Years active:2004-2008 (as Thulcandra), 2008-present
Not to be confused with the doom metal band Galdr from Seattle, Washington.

In 2019 the band came out as anti-fascist and anti-racist and for this reason ended its collaboration with Darker than Black Records and with far right listeners.

DISCOGRAPHY

Valdyrhugr Demo 2009
Galdr Full-length 2011
Ancient Lights from the Stars Full-length 2013
Mörkergång Single 2014
Mörkergång Full-length 2015

current line up

Draugr All instruments, Vocals (2008-present)
See also: Ancalagon, ex-Obscurum, ex-Thulcandra, ex-Abyssus (live)

REVIEWS

GALDR: "Galdr" - 80%
skaven, December 14th, 2011

Production-wise, truly successful and unique albums are hard to come by, but heck how impressed I am of Galdr’s eponymous debut offering. As soon as the introduction ”Winter and Life” ends and ”Futhark” kicks in the black metal, I can’t stop smiling throughout the next thirty minutes.

The key here is the hazy analogue production as cold as a blizzard, fitting into the wintry, mysterious and fairly melancholic black metal perfectly. Everything sounds distant and hence very evocative, reminding me of Orrery’s only album. Compositions follow the roots of dark, mid-paced Burzum, including the screams and various synths that appear every now and then, but not without Galdr’s own touch. Almost without exceptions, the tremolo-picked riffs are simply fantastic, enduring the repetition that they are given in these brooding atmospheric songs.

Without going into unnecessary details like ’that and that riff is amazing’, I can assure that Galdr is a great piece of atmospheric black metal, one of this year’s highlighs so far. It’s not for those who enjoy their black metal well-produced and downright aggressive; this album seems - according to me - rely heavily on frustration and sadness, yet not sounding like a depressive black metal album at all. Wholly recommended for those who enjoy their black metal in the Hvis lyset tar oss way.

4 / 5

Black Metal is far from dead - 89%
jelle11101, April 4th, 2011

Little of the early Norwegian Black Metal scene remains today. Mayhem's sound nowadays is something entirely different from De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, Darkthrone is trading their dark roots for punk album by album, bands like Emperor have split up, and all kinds of fates have made the movement shrink over the years. A whole new breed of black metal, however, seems to be emerging from beyond Norway and Sweden, but remains in the underground to prevent becoming mainstream. This happens mostly in Southen America and the United States, and one of the better examples is Galdr, a Pagan Black Metal band with lots of potential.

Their eponymous debut album Galdr feels like a nostalgic desire for those early days of the 90's when bands like Mayhem and Burzum were still kicking asses and burning churches. This release could in fact be easily compared to early Burzum albums like Filosofem and Det Som Engang Var. The style is minimalistic with bad production, which seems to be the law for most kvlt elitists, but this time it really adds something to the whole atmosphere. Something that was also present in the Spell albums by Gehenna, Doomed Dark Years by Astarte, or even For All Tid by Dimmu Borgir. A cold, haunting feeling, like your walking alone in a blizzard through frozen fields where once grass would fill you entire sight (therefore the cover is perfect for the release.)

The vocals are your basic shrieks, but full of grief and suffering. It's like someone ruined his voice by constantly shouting for help, or for company. Again, this creates a nice new layer to the whole dark, gloomy atmosphere of Galdr. The drums and the guitars are not very technical, exactly like it's supposed to be. Maybe it's just because of the thin production, but I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. What you get here, is simplicity in its purest form, and Draugr knows how to make it appealing.

Keyboards are not often present in this album, but when they are, they send shivers up your spine like only the true Norwegian kings could've done it. The best example is probably the outro track 'Snowfall And Decay', which is basicly composed only out of keyboard tracks. At first, the album gets at its loudest point, then it transforms in something slow, something ambient, something you would describe as the sense of dying slowly. You can just feel your eyes closing, you can feel yourself drifting towards infinite dreamscapes...

I would recommend this album to anyone who recognizes true talent and atmosphere when they hear it. Lets all hope this artist can make another album that takes you away into a world of sadness and despair (in a good way of course) and that all of his work can be found in your local record store (don't count it though). A pearl that should be added to the crown that is your Metal collection.

From the frozen fjords of...the Atlanta suburbs? - 89%
iamntbatman, June 10th, 2015
One of the most frustrating things for black metal fans is coming across some previously unfamiliar black metal band only to have the only review commentary for it expound upon how it's simply yet another *insert very famous 2nd wave Norwegian band* clone and either a) is good but is nothing new or b) can be safely disregarded as it is a clone and therefore not worthy. The frustration arises from the fact that sure, some bands really obviously do take a massive influence from some of those big name bands or even purposefully operate within the confines of a single band's influence, but those aren't really as common as people make them out to be. More often than not I'm simply left with the impression that the writer wasn't really all that familiar with a broad range of black metal and thus took the easy way out and slapped a Darkthrone Clone tag on there even if the influence is minuscule. The reason for all of this moaning and groaning on my part is that I'm about to do the exact same thing: Galdr are Burzum worship through and through. Unlike Galdr's compatriots in, say, Wigrid or Evilfeast, here you won't find a band grabbing the vitally important thrust of Burzum's last two pre-prison album and stretching them out into sprawling landscapes of atmosphere but rather trying to recreate some of that same magic without really altering the approach much at all. Songs are long but not massive, stretching from just under six minutes to nearly nine and a half in the title track, but Galdr aren't really interested in crafting 20-minute head nodders. Instead, each song has a handful of riffs that ebb and flow with more than a little repetition but not without enough variation in the guitar dynamics, percussion and vocals to keep one's attention. It also doesn't hurt that the sprawling, wind-blown snowscapes of guitars sound simply wonderful. Galdr also strive for a bit different approach than many of their peers in terms of production. Rather than going for a really dirty overall production, the technique seems more similar to what Burzum were doing in the first place: cheap (or cheap-sounding) gear used to create a very harsh sound but captured very clearly by high-quality studio recording equipment. I have no knowledge of the actual recording process used here, but the effect is recreated ably and the music benefits from this dedication to sound quality. The mix also has the simple and hypnotic drums pushed up front with the vocals while the multi-tracked swarm of tremolo-picked guitars flurries by across the whole backdrop. Often it's the other way around, with vocals mixed to be distant-sounding and drums buried beneath layer after layer of guitar haze. It's a welcome change of pace and works well, as the drums and vocals are allowed to serve as a focal point while the guitars envelop your brain. Riffs are simple affairs, usually just a few chords, but they tend to be front-loaded with the prettier or more skyward-bound melodic fragments then end on more sinister-sounding chords, the result of which can be described as nothing other than despair-packed. The heavy use of multitracking in the guitars also allows for a lot of interesting layering going on, as Draugr (it's a one-man project, of course) did not fail to incorporate the often overlooked lead guitar that helped bring some Burzum material to the next level. Finally, the vocals are delivered in nearly the exact same style as Varg himself, with a generous but not overdone helping of reverb and delay, though Draugr has a slightly lower, less screechy voice than Varg's. It's very well done, if slightly less potent in its inhuman caterwauling than it could be. Of course, one of the most fondly-remembered elements of those two magnificent pre-prison albums is the use of ambiance and synthesizers to add to the atmosphere. Draugr is a bit of a tease in this regard, giving us two instrumentals that clock in at under two minutes each, hinting at his prowess with this key element. We then get a really forlorn intro to the sprawling title track, but naturally the real synthesizer theatrics are left for the magnificent closing instrumental "Nordstierne." It's extremely likely that I'm just a sucker for this kind of stuff, or perhaps it's the buildup of synth teases sprinkled throughout the album when the payoff of a song like "Nordstierne" was likely inevitable, but I'll be damned if Galdr isn't just a keyboard wizard. A three-note droning progression of fat, swelling synth hovers on for the song's entire duration, while periodic space whale songs pierce through with a simple but effective harmonic counter to the main theme. It's not quite "Tomhet" but it's still gorgeous stuff. Essentially, if Hvis lyset tar oss and Filosofem are among your favorite black metal albums, you will be thoroughly pleased with Galdr's efforts on this second album. Draugr really understands what makes those Burzum records tick, what makes them special, and not only succeeds at recreating the all-important atmosphere but also writes some fine songs and performs them passionately. For those of you who write off every Nth underground black metal band as uninspired Burzum worship, I suggest you give this album a listen as well, both to serve as an example of true Burzum worship of the finest caliber but also to demonstrate how inspired a band like this can sound. Plus, look how gorgeous that artwork is! Wonderful stuff.

Ancient music - 84%
iamntbatman, June 22nd, 2016
Galdr's Mörkergång picks up almost exactly where Ancient Light from the Stars left off. Humming bass-frequency synths give the impression of the sorts of sounds described in sci-fi novels when grizzled ship's engineers talk about the hum of the hyperwarp engines gently vibrating through the carbon-titanium floorplates. A retro synth recorder of some sort adds in a suitable melody, but before the track really has time to settle in it's yanked away from us and we're tossed headfirst into the rippling black tide. It's unsubtle, but that could be due to this actually being an older recording than Ancient Light..., perhaps the synth intro added as a way to bridge the thematic gap between this older material and the previous, yet newer, album.

The last album made its mark by perfecting Galdr's approach to Burzum-informed black metal. The band often gets mentioned as a good choice for those in search of quality music taking heavy doses of inspiration from Varg's two seminal works in atmospheric black metal (his third and fourth albums). Far above and beyond mere clone-ish worship or half-assed bedroom bullshit, Draugr (the sole creative force behind Galdr) is a talented musician and songwriter with an ear for sound design. He very obviously has paid a hell of a lot more attention to the details in those Burzum recordings, putting a lot of attention into why it is that those minimalistic riffs and melodies were so effective when layered just so, the rhythm section and vocals providing vital contrast to the hypnotizing whirlwind of tremolo.

Despite this high praise of mine, repeated back-to-back listens has shown me that perhaps Draugr had only discovered the magic needed to conjure his own art sometime in the middle of the writing sessions for Mörkergång. Certain of the tracks here easily stand tall with the bleakest, most draining songs on the previous album, namely "Trolldom och sorg" and "Norrsken over stormen," both of which feature powerful, driving riffs rife with chords chosen carefully for their juxtaposition of ugliness and fragile glimmers of beauty. The heavily layered guitars wash way out to the sides of the mix, the crisply recorded drums and base pulsing through the middle as a foundation over which Draugr's acid rasps can emote freely. His vocals are very good here, if a bit distant, but I do think they sound slightly more organic and human than they would on the later recording, where he injected a touch more nihilistic savagery to his delivery, scouring away the last traces of humanity.

But then we get a pair of back-to-back ten minute songs which go in a slightly less interesting direction. "Överbrygga liv" starts well enough: a couple of alternating chords backed by plodding bass and an unwavering basic rock drum beat. Nothing too off-color, but by around three minutes in you start reckoning that Varg himself would've never rode something out quite this long without some subtle variations or tweaking in the layered guitars or a haunted synth line coming in. We get small shifts in the drumming patterns (high hat swapped for a ride, etc.) and some slightly different chord choices, but mostly this is just ten minutes of staring into a dirty, gray corner of a windowless room. Granted, there are a hell of a lot of moments in Burzum's discography that seemed to paint similar pictures in my mind, but never was he content to just leave you in that corner to die, he'd grab you by the hand and take you somewhere. Draugr himself seemed to learn this distinction later on, or at least to decide it's the better route. I'm not entire sure that I wholly dislike this track for its nearly total lack of dynamics (the double bass drums that finally arrive near the end being an extremely welcome micro-release) or if I actually appreciate the bold minimalism of it, but I can say that it makes me a bit uncomfortable in ways I'm having trouble finding words for. I like music that's confrontational, but I also like music that hammers on your emotional states in exactly the ways you hope it will and expect it to. This track just sort of hovers around the uncanny valley between those two extremes.

"I Den Kalla Evigheten" sort of suffers from that same problem, but is additionally held back by a good portion of its riffs mostly not being very good. The second riff set that comes in a few minutes into the song is quite decent, as is the pounding, ringing chords that serve as the song's climax, but there are long passages where the guitars are just sort of indistinct in their melodic direction, a blur where whatever subtleties might be at work in the note choices are lost in a haze of distortion and blastbeats. The vocal delivery in this track is also sort of uninspired sounding to me.

Thankfully, Galdr would later gain a firmer grasp on what sorts of ideas from these songs were effective and which were best left behind, and the generally more refined approach seen on the previous/later-recorded Ancient Light... is evidence of that reflection and growth as a songwriter. That's the real upswing about this album; even though I don't like it quite as much as the last one, the evident improvement from one recording session to the next leaves me confident in supposing that whenever the next album of Galdr material surfaces it will be at least as good as the previous album, perhaps even better. Whatever happens, though, I can say without hesitation that Galdr is one of the most consistent and promising bands in American black metal and something worth seeking out.