Ondfødt – Oldfodt [EP]

With all due respect to both band and label, sometimes the logic eludes me a bit of what gets thrown on the market. One such example is ‘Oldfodt’, this new EP by Finnish Black Metal band Ondfødt. Although, “new”, that’s where the shoe pinches. ‘Oldfodt’ is really little more than old ideas parading as new. Four out of the five songs are re-recorded tracks from older albums with the fifth being a cover version of an old Finnish rock song.

In 2022, the band underwent a rather drastic overhaul, replacing two musicians with new ones. With that new line-up, the excellent ‘Det Österbottniska Mörkret’ was recorded and released through their new Swedish label Black Lion Records in 2023. The strong and powerful sound of that album will have prompted some to think that the older records did not reach their full potential and, with that in mind, three songs from ‘Dödsrikets Kallelse’, the second album, and one from the debut ‘Hexkonst’ were chosen to be re-recorded in this new line-up.

The result is indeed what you might expect. The songs themselves have not been audibly altered, but the production has been raised to the new standard, that is, with an equally full and powerful sound. It can also be argued with some realism that the playing of this renewed line-up sounds a lot tighter than on the original recordings. But what is more often the case in these situations is that this does do something to the mood of a song, especially if you are already familiar with the originals. Such an action is therefore by no means always appreciated. The fact that the band did this anyway must have been mostly out of their own initiative, to hear how those old songs “should have sounded”.

The only thing really new on this EP, which clocks in at just under 20 minutes, is the cover of Rauli Somerjoki, which he originally recorded in 1973. The original is a honey sweet and agonising piece of kitsch given a completely different guise by Ondfødt. This Black Metal version is the most melodic thing to enjoy on this EP, but does not really disappoint.

The actual necessity of the EP can be debated, but in the end, ‘Oldfodt’ shows a band that is getting better and better at their game of pacey Swedish Black Metal with enough hints of those chunky riffs and catchy hooks of later Behemoth. And, to give things a positive twist, if you are unfamiliar with Ondfødt, this is a perfect entry-level release to start with.