Eihwar leaves St. Louis in electro tribal trance

Eihwar brought their Nordic Ritual Nights Tour to The Hawthorn on September 18th, giving St. Louis a show that looked and sounded pretty different from almost anything else that comes through the room. The French electro group offers a sound dubbed “Viking War Trance”, mixing Nordic folk influences with heavy drums, chanting, and EDM beats; it’s the type of music you’d listen to while riding into battle, basically.

And by the end of the night, the crowd at The Hawthorn was ready to do just that.

Frayle opened the night — a good match for the darker tonality of the show. Their slower, heavier sound lured people in before Eihwar took things over in a much more rhythmic direction. The performance felt somewhere between a concert and a ritual: large drums drove much of the set by Mark with lead singer Asrunn chanting underneath (both using stage names to maintain anonymity). The duo even did a dark cover of Lana Del Rey’s “Summertime Sadness”… which was pretty sick.

The Hawthorn also worked well for a show like this. Being in a smaller room made the drums feel heavier; the lack of separation between performance and people watching it blurred the lines of real and imaginary. From Eihwar’s outfits to the sounds reverberating off the walls, it was a night of captivation. The music was loud and physical, the production was minimal and raw,, and the crowd seemed completely on board with all of it.

Eihwar has already played major European festivals, including Hellfest, Wacken Open Air, and Midgardsblot, but this tour gave American audiences one of the first opportunities to see the group in action without traveling overseas. With this in mind, you have to go see them if you can!

Photography by Sean Rider

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