Review by Dominik on October 11, 2025.

These days we were forced to endure yet another episode of this geriatric US president rambling at the United Nations about elevator stairs possessed by a poltergeist and a malfunctioning teleprompter run by the chairman of the Democrats. Add to this an unbearable amount of egomaniacal centrism, a total ignorance of geopolitics and a level of professionalism that wouldn't pass muster at a junior high debate club, and you start craving a counterexample: someone, somewhere, who knows what they're doing. Welcome to Helvitnir and their new release "Wolves Of The Underworld". The contrast is almost comical. Where the leader of the free world stumbles through his lines, jumps from topic to topic, this band operates with discipline, experience and a sense of purpose. It is, in other words, the antidote I needed — though not without its own flaws.

The band's very name signals a promise. In Old Norse, "Hel" is both the goddess and the realm of the dead, while "vitnir" can mean a wolf or a wolfdog. In some texts Helvitnir is thus described as a wolf that lives in Hel's domain, a creature associated with death and afterlife, a guardian of Helheim, fearsome and vigilant. It is an image that sits comfortably with the music on offer here: grim, muscular and at its best, it is convincing enough to make you believe you're standing at the gates of the dead rather than in front of your stereo. The title of the album feels like a logical (though redundant) extension of the band's moniker. These are the wolves of the underworld, a pack that you expect tearing out throats rather than sniffing around. And yet, while the band's roster promised a sonic mauling, what we get is more of a precise, almost civilized attack. Of course it is impressive in places, but at times strangely restrained and proving that when everything becomes routine, spontaneity and excitement tend to fade.

Musically, the album ticks all the right boxes and then some. The production is spot on, giving every instrument room to unfold. What impresses me most is that the bass guitar here has a role that far exceeds the usual background rumbling so common in black metal. It provides a dark pulse that complements rather than disappears beneath the guitars. The drumming is impeccable as Hellhammer's disciplined blasts never descend into formless noise. The vocalist brings years of experience to his performance. Yet where his other work with Myronath truly excelled, here he sometimes sounds a little too convinced that a standard performance with a dash of Attila Csihar automatically elevates him above average.

The opening trio of songs illustrates both: the album's strengths and its shortcomings and shows how small nuances shift my perception from "just average" to "this is how good black metal should sound". The opener "Throes Of Transformation" exemplifies the problem: it shines with serving up all known black metal requirements but exudes an air of bored routine, as if the band had been called into the studio, given thirty minutes and paid to record a typical black-metal song in the vein of Marduk. Despite the blasts, the tight performance and the interesting bass guitar role, the spark of inspiration is missing. "Black Flame Triad" fares better, lingering right on the threshold of what the rest of the album should be. The Swedish-tinged melody after the second slowdown provides exactly the extra dimension needed to lift it above the ordinary and it stays somewhere between competent and compelling. Finally, with the self-titled "Helvitnir", the album lives up to my expectations. Here the band sounds spontaneous and authentic. It feels much less like they're following a template and more like they're channeling something real. Even though the riffs owe plenty to Marduk, the high tempo and the dynamic shift mid-song work strongly in its favor.

"Odinsbane" is another standout because it shows the band breaking out of their own cookbook of sonic mayhem. Its hard-hitting mid-tempo stomp, the perfect symbiosis of double bass and bass guitar, the timid keyboard accents and a vocalist who even inserts some cleaner, nearly operatic black-metal vocals all make for a convincing song. "Dread Biter" cranks the intensity back up, and though it sounds patched together from familiar ingredients, it remains gripping. Given the band members' parallel projects, some cut-and-paste can be forgiven. The closing track leaves the listener with a memorable riff, some variety in tonality and, above all, the hope that the next album will pick up exactly where it leaves off and finally cross my magic 80 rating into the truly outstanding.

In the end, "Wolves Of The Underworld" is a good black-metal album by a band with the skill and pedigree to make a great one. It exudes competence and craft at nearly every turn, but only sometimes achieves the kind of originality that burns its way into your brain. Still, in a world where even the most powerful office can be reduced to vaudeville, and its current main actor wouldn't behave differently, even if you pushed him nose first into Emily Post's "Etiquette", Helvitnir's grim professionalism is almost refreshing.

Rating 7.9 out of 10, because it feels fair. But beware: the wolves of Helheim have their teeth at the ready, and if they sink them deeper next time, they may well drag us all into something unforgettable.