Glittertind

Named after Norway’s second-highest peak, Glittertind fuses folk, pop, progressive metal, and punk into a sound that recalls Turisas, Korpiklaani, Kaizers Orchestra, and Heidevolk. What began as the solo project of vocalist and guitarist Torbjørn Sandvik produced the band’s first two albums, Evige Asatro in 2004 and Til Dovre Faller in 2005, before the lineup grew. Multi-instrumentalist Geirmund Simonsen, formerly a church organist and a composer-producer for theater, film, and television, joined in time for the third release, Landkjenning, which appeared in 2009. By 2013 the group had become a six-piece and issued the widely praised Djevelsvart, an album shaped by Sandvik’s girlfriend’s cancer diagnosis and by the 2011 Norwegian terror attacks that claimed seventy-seven lives. The single “Høyr Min Song (Til Fridomen)” preceded the more acoustic and historically focused second full-band effort, Blåne for Blåne, which arrived in April 2015 after the single’s January launch. Two years later the band returned with Himmelfall, an album tracing the impact of the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation on Norwegian politics and culture.