Let’s start by saying that this album by the British band Ildra is the reissue of the only full length released so far, Eðelland, dating back to 2011. If very often the re-release of works that are several years old can be considered a superfluous operation, this is certainly not true for an album of such depth: the black metal with a conspicuous pagan folk component contained in these three quarters of an hour of music is the best you can hear in this stylistic field, and it would have been a crime to let Eðelland continue to languish in a sort of oblivion.
Therefore, Heidens Hart Records, a Dutch label specialized in black metal, did the right thing to bring back to light this cross-section of epic sounds that, obviously, do not contain any new element, but are, if anything, the exciting perpetuation of a tradition that starts with the seminal Bathory and arrives today with bands of the calibre of Primordial, with all the other important names included in this perimeter (Falkenbach, Moosorrow, etc.). Of the value of Ildra, whose composition has never been known apart from their current fate (if you go to their Facebook page, it appears desolately empty), two tracks in particular offer us the measure, Rice Æfter Oðrum and Swa Cwæð Se Eardstapa, real concentrates of solemn epic, with a magnificent guitar work capable of outlining evocative melodies (especially the final crescendo of the second of the two tracks). Eðelland is an album that must be recovered and, even if it doesn’t have any sequel, it remains one of the most effective examples of pagan black offered in this decade.

2014 – Heidens Hart Records