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Under a clear night’s sky, bards, barkeeps and warriors are queueing outside Glasgow’s SEC Armadillo. All these tunics and braids can only mean one thing: WARDRUNA are in town. Spring has arrived in Scotland’s largest city, and with it, the Norwegian troupe who draw inspiration from the elements, the land, and its traditions. Conditions would be perfect were it not for this evening’s venue, which no amount of ceremonial pyres and grasses can disguise from being anything more than an austere conference centre. It’s up to WARDRUNA to give this perfunctory hall some magic.
First up is JO QUAIL, who cuts a lonely figure centre stage, accompanied only by her electric cello (which she’s quick to point out was made in Fort William). WARDRUNA’s instruments lie scattered around her, which has a way of amplifying what QUAIL is able to achieve all by herself. A true virtuoso, she constructs each of her compositions by looping as she plays so that, after a few minutes, it sounds as if an entire string quartet is in full flow.
Having toured the UK’s glamorous rooms supporting bigger acts and headlined some of its cosier venues as well, she strikes the perfect balance of tasteful professionalism and grit. She’s adept at playing to polite, seated audiences like this evening, acknowledging the witches in the crowd ahead of Adder Stone, and captivating prog metallers at ArcTanGent too.
So it is that her music can be received with stoic admiration, or as an invitation to move as she moves – with drama – her body following each new motif as it dances on top of her songs’ foundations. Whether touring under her own name at the nearby Hug and Pint (a tiny, yet characterful, basement), or opening auditoriums like this evening, QUAIL is able to tease out the right notes to match her environment, and never fails to sweep us all along with her sonic storytelling.
Rating: 8/10
Towards the end of this evening’s show, Einar Selvik – WARDRUNA’s mastermind – says he wants us to know this is no mere LARP or nostalgia trip. These songs, he explains, are for now and for the future, and pleads with the audience to prioritise singing in their personal lives, as if singing is as vital to existence as air and water. The Glasgow crowd can’t sing along to WARDRUNA’s odes to Norse mythology, sung as they are in ancient languages, but thousands sit in awe at the band’s musical prowess. Selvik’s voice is suitably powerful and otherworldly, as if rising from the Earth itself with the intent of imbuing everything it finds with meaning. His delivery is emotional, confirming that these songs mean something now, presently, and not just in the past.
The comparatively lifeless SEC Armadillo works against them, as if the band are being presented to observers instead of devoted followers. One can imagine a show in the city’s iconic Barrowland Ballroom instead would result in dancing and howling, and rightly so, as the band’s percussive heartbeat deserves more than passive admiration. As Skugge crescendos into a chorus of voices and drums, it’s a crime to sit still. WARDRUNA play a blinding set, one that is expertly constructed to dial the intensity up and down at all the right moments, sending us off into the evening with Hibjørnen, a lullaby, so it’s not their fault it feels as if there’s a gap between band and audience. It is like watching them knock it out of the park on Jools Holland. Selvik’s ode to the necessity of music only adds to a sense of regret we weren’t able to dance with his band tonight.
But by the night’s end, there’s no getting away from the fact WARDRUNA are doing something special. Signature piece Helvegen, a song about death performed among funereal flames, feels so intensely human. It is a spectacle, and the entire show is a dedication to rituals that have been carried out for thousands of years, drawing connections between our ability to create musical traditions and the solace they provide across cultures and generations. The music they make is sincere, and it’s in service of the profound; WARDRUNA want to make you feel moved. With a stage show as grand as their songs and ambitions, they pull it off.
Rating: 8/10
Check out our photo gallery of the night’s action in Glasgow from Duncan McCall here:
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The post LIVE REVIEW: Wardruna @ SEC Armadillo, Glasgow appeared first on Distorted Sound Magazine.
