![]() ![]() This is a soundtrack to Norse lands, but they are Norse lands of a video game, and not of any reality. The addition of these folk instruments really helps to give a sense of place, but – and I really love this – that sense of place is blurry at best. I’m pleased to see that Oskar is now recognised as a fourth member of Kalandra (now a Douglas Adams style trio of four), but mention also has to be made of guest musicians John Stenersen and Kenneth Lien, who add traditional instruments to the mix, and really enrich and augment music that is already quite wonderful. A lot of this is down to how much emotion Oskar is able to put into his drumming, regardless of whether the setting is amplified or unplugged. Then again, Kalandra had already proved they don’t need amplification to express their heavier side, with the release of an unplugged version of Ensom in mid-2021 (a song which in its original incarnation on The Line I described as “powerful and almost pummelling”). This is definitely an album that is enjoyable from beginning to end, even if it is a quieter Kalandra than I might have been expecting, Kingdom Two Crowns maintains interest throughout, and there are some surprisingly heavy (relatively speaking) moments that provide impact and drama. Kalandra, however, have the balance just right, as where a lot of soundtracks can fall flat is when that consistency veers into monotony. Kingdom Two Crowns still has a degree of variation in sound and mood, but the distance between the peaks and valleys is closer, giving a greater consistency of sound. Ultimately, the greatest difference between The Line and Kingdom Two Crowns is that the former has a greater variation in sound and mood than the latter. For sure, it has the atmosphere and ambience of the soundtrack to a film (sorry, video game), but I did describe one of the songs from The Line as being a “slow-building, minimalist, ambient and atmospheric delight”. Moreover, whether you choose to compare or contrast it to The Line, Kingdom Two Crowns is still unmistakably Kalandra. ![]() I admit it took me a while to take the idea of a video game track seriously, but I now completely regret my reticence, as some of my favourite albums from the past few years have been either soundtracks to video games, or inspired by them. The soundtracks for video games routinely show greater thought and more careful curation or composition than those for film soundtracks. That may sound surprising for some older listeners, based on the music (often more accurately muzak) of the games they once played, but just as video games have evolved tremendously as technology has allowed, so have their soundtracks. But what exactly is Norse Lands? It would be easy to assume it is a television series, like Vikings (for which Einar Selvic and Wardruna provided the soundtrack), but Norse Lands is actually a new world for the video game Kingdom Two Crowns. Kingdom Two Crowns, as the remainder of its title suggests, comes from the soundtrack to Norse Lands. ![]()
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