I've been following Valborg since they started out noting each of their releases as having potential but not being fully realized. This is weird stuff with no discernible influences that I can tell, which automatically earns my attention, but it wasn't until Barbarian that I was really impressed. This album is so fucking moody, so hypnotic and atmospheric, at moments you could call it minimalist with it's apparent simple song structures, but there's a lot between the lines here. On Barbarian, Valborg painted a picture of a hulking, lumbering soldier, battle-ax in hand, on a journey. During some tracks he lays waste to small villages, bludgeoning peasants into muddy battlefields. On others he wanders, he reflects, he regrets. And on the second to last track (I like to think when he meets a special lady) he sings a rock ballad that if played with a different guitar, through a different amp, in a different country, could have easily made it onto a Scorpions album. What the fuck you might say. What the fuck indeed.
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