Uburen’s début album Withered Roots is a fiery homage to the band’s Norwegian heritage done in a much more aggressive style than is the norm for most Viking/Pagan bands. I asked some questions to find a bit more about them…
Give us a bit of background to Uburen
Uburen is a 3 piece band formed after ending other music projects. All members had a common interest in Norse mythology and the old Norwegian culture and wanted to form a band that would deliver both musically and as a live preforming band with a stage show that will not be forgotten right away.
What are your influences?
Bands that influence us are many, but among some of the more known bands: Enslaved, King Of Asgard, Varg, Vreid a lot of the underground bands also offer a lot of inspiration for their music and their will to continue on self economy.
What are you listening to at the moment that you would like to recommend?
Nowadays we listen to a lot of various bands such as Woods Of Ypres, Wyrd, King Of Asgard, Solstafir, Khold.
What did you want to achieve with your new album?
We would like to spread our music and the message of a dying culture, meet new people have some drinks and play concerts.
Are you happy with how it turned out?
With a budget nearly none from our own pockets we ourselves think its pretty decent, but can’t really measure up to Amon Amarth or Enslaved.
Tell us about your sound – it’s a lot heavier and more extreme than a lot who play this Viking style
The sound on Withered Roots is heavily inspired by folk and black metal, but not “nice sing-along boy-scout-campfire” music or music is inspired by the frontline on the battlefield and we try to captivate the macabre, anguish, anger, fear, hate, despair and all the raw emotions.
Tell us about your lyrics
Our lyrics focus around the darker side of the Norse history and mythology from the tales of creatures such as “Nøkken” the disapearence of men lured in and suffocated in the cold lakes fact based stories of brutal executions such as the “Blood Eagle” songs that tells stories with underlying words from the old sagas for instance about never giving up fighting ’til you die. Not trying to avoid your fate, keep walking through every winter.
Give us a bit of information on the songwriting process and how you create your songs.
The song writing process varies from song to song, usually one of us has a riff or bits of lyrics then we sit together think it through, what feeling and what message we want to tell when the song is put together we play through couple times take a break for at least 1 week to reflect if its how we want it to be.
In my review I say “Imagine Enslaved if they were less Progressive and more aggressive, or maybe Amon Amarth if they used Black Metal as the basis for their sound rather than Death Metal”. What are your thoughts on this?
It’s and honour to be compared with such bands as Enslaved and Amon Amarth we are all fans of them since way back, but we have not intentionally tried to sound like anyone. Our sound has just formed itself from our own minds.
How do you see your position in the wider Black Metal musical framework/genre?
Can’t say that we have given much thought to playing within a certain genre like Black Metal or Folk Metal its just music inspired by old Norwegian history and folk lore and our past is grim so that we sound like Black Metal just happened.
How do you see your songs/direction developing in the future?
We have no planned direction for our music nor for our lyrics, it will continue to evolve with us. No compremise.
What does the future hold for Uburen?
At the moment we are looking into playing at festivals around where we are wanted. We have some booked, but those are secret for now we would also like to go into the studio again in the not to distant future whenever our pockets allow it. Maybe even another music video.
Thanks!
Wonderbox Metal 