After three albums dedicated to the magic letters of the runic alphabet, this album is simply called “Bear”. Maybe that title is referring to a popular series of the same name, but somehow I think that culinary series is not a match for these Nordic prog rockers.
Birna contains some beautiful atmospheric tracks, played on authentic Nordic instruments, some of them made by the band themselves. What I’ve seen happen in the past is not happening to them: they don’t betray their roots by grabbing guitars and do what everybody else is doing. The beaten path is not suitable for these stubborn Norse Vikings. Their popularity has hit on all time high when they did music for a couple of computer games, so I suppose they can afford to be stubborn and original.