![iku-turso – wolfheart [ep]](https://www.vm-underground.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Iku-Turso-Wolfheart-cover.jpg "Iku-Turso – Wolfheart [EP]")
Info
- Band(s): Iku-Turso
- Label(s): Korpituli Productions, Purity Through Fire
- Release Format(s): Cassette, CD, EP
- Release Year: 2025
- Review Date: September 21, 2025
- Author(s): Huw
Whenever I reminisce on Black Metal, specifically the genre’s Nordic history with its many totemic releases, it always emphatically reminds me of just how much incredible music that this strange outsider art form has produced over the years. The modern genre is a far cry from its misanthropic, anti-establishment, anti-commercial, and blasphemous church burning salad days. Nordic Black Metal has grown into an immense, albeit, still somewhat deliberately underground global phenomenon by comparison, and we, the passionate fans, have much to celebrate. That brings me to Iku-Turso. This four piece Black Metal outfit hailing from the Netherlands has released a new EP that centres around a stylistic celebration of the Nordic history of the genre.
Featuring four original tracks and a fifth cover song, the EP, which is entitled ‘Wolfheart’ offers a rather diverse collection of tracks ranging from classic icy cryonic conventions to explorations of some of the most extreme expressions of anguish associated with Black Metal. The eight-minute opening track ‘Pagan Beasts’ would not look out of place if found amongst the track listings on various older Bathory and Emperor albums. The subtle creepy and epic synthesisers flow nicely amongst the current of the catchy and anthemic guitar progressions. Track two ‘Gales of Hail’ ramps the tempo up to near classic Immortal level sonic battery, the drums and rhythmic vocal delivery of the song batter you unyieldingly as if to suggest a situation where you find yourself hopelessly lost and caught out in the wilderness during a heavy and lethal blizzard.
Following this, the music slows down to a despondent trudge on the song ‘Grizzled Skies’. This track finds the band dabbling in some DSBM (Depressive Suicidal Black Metal) fare. The unsettling atmosphere of the instrumentation, coupled with vocalist Lafawijn’s high pitched and tortured sounding shrieks, showcases some of the fundamentals of this style, and the band actually pulls it off for the most part without ever drifting into an overbearing attempt to force the listener to level with some deep sense of mental suffrage. I also love how the woodwind elements complement the song’s eventual climactic moments. To top off this display of genre revelry, the EP closes with a cover of the Emperor classic ‘Beyond the Great Vast Forest’. The performance stays true to the writing of the original song whilst being slightly more brutal in its approach at times, and it’s a fun way to close out the track list.
Wolfheart reminds me of so much of the fantastic music that this genre has to offer. Releases that focus on purely celebrating a specific style can be a tricky prospect to nail. That said, the inspiration that I feel to throw on a classic Darkthrone, Bathory, or Dissection record after listening to this EP points to a feeling of a mission accomplished by Iku-Turso.
Iku-Turso
- Country: Finland, Netherlands
- Style: Black Metal
- Links: Facebook, Instagram, Bandcamp, Spotify, Youtube
