But it’s not solely the composition, which has long been edging towards something like this; the band itself has morphed, too. Four of the musicians from the last album are here (including Nyberg, who plays nothing this time around; he’s become purely the composer and arranger), along with the Danish String Quartet and several Faroese musicians. Afenginn has always had a pan-Nordic vision, but this time it’s taken on a different identity. At times it’s epic, but the grandeur can be bleak and grey, a reflection of the land and seascapes, and a reliance on piano as the main instrument, with pedal steel in there for touches of colour while the two drummers use contrasting rhythms to lighten and syncopate the beat in very subtle ways.

Although it has several tracks listed on the sleeve, they effectively run quite naturally from one to the next, with the music itself made up of interlocking cycles of different lengths (true, too, for the lyrics, in Faroese, rather than an imagined language this time). Yet there’s never a sense of it being academic or mathematical. Quite the opposite; it’s an album that feels weighted with beautiful longing and sorrow, the most emotional work Nyberg has written. There might be occasional similarities in mood and tone with Iceland’s Sigur Rós (leaving the listener curious as to whether there is a kind of North ~Atlantic sensibility that moves Westward across the water in the path of the Viking ancestors), but this feels very much like a masterwork for Nyberg’s composition. It’s not rock, it’s not folk, it’s probably not classical. It simply is. It’s Afenginn music, and astonishingly good. For those who buy the vinyl, there are two apparently different run-on grooves, which offer varied “listening experiences” as well as a closed loop at the end of the second side. – Chris Nickson

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