At the end of the day, genre is meaningless. This thought felt all-consuming while watching Norwegian dark-folk collective Wardruna, who seem to defy neat categorization — not because they’re genre-agnostic, but because categorization feels pointless, even when it’s something as direct as “dark-folk.” Their sound, though modern in some ways, makes its listeners feel teleported back in time, even when you’re watching them from the comfortable seats inside one of Portland’s oldest concert halls. These concepts are a newfangled creation, and Wardruna reminds us of a time where music wasn’t just a pastime — it was a force that united communities, shared stories across generations, eased suffering, and helped in celebrating the most joyous occasions in life. In other words, it takes us back to a time when frivolities such as “genre” simply did not exist.

At their Portland stop on tour for this year’s Birna, Wardruna gently ushered us back into that time, where music felt like it had the power to move mountains and turn tides. It wasn’t difficult, either; the members performed with traditional instruments, like singer/de facto frontperson Einar Selvik and his kraviklyre, or the cartoonishly long lur horns deployed thoughtfully across the show. Even their stage show felt out-of-step with the modern age; they had some projections, but they also made liberal use of the power of shadows projected on the wall — or, in their case, on their massive, textured backdrop. Spaces like the Keller are perfect for shows like this one, which seek to show you a world you don’t know. In the hands of an act like Wardruna, that power seemed like it had multiplied to the point where leaving the world they had created for us felt almost disappointing.

It didn’t hurt that good ol’ Chelsea Wolfe was there to help us get into the swing of things. Wolfe, too, is an artist whose music defies genre — she flits from dark-folk to metal to drone, her sound always cleaving to a specific flavor, but never coming through in quite the same way. Here at the Keller, which is likely the most opulent space Wolfe has occupied in her 15ish years visiting Portland, the heavier, metallier flavors in her music took a backseat. It was just Wolfe, her guitar, and multi-instrumentalist Ben Chisholm, their relatively delicate sound filling up the space across a generous 45 minutes, heavily showcasing last year’s She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She and 2019’s Birth of Violence. It seems likely that many of the people in the audience would have totally resonated with Wolfe’s metal leanings, but it’s hard to complain when what we got was deeply arresting.

In recent months, the crowds of Portland seem to have forgotten their manners, attending shows but using them as a place to loudly catch up with friends, all within earshot of those who came to, y’know, see the show. Here at Wardruna, though, it seemed like everybody came to the Keller to sit in quiet reverence, swept away by the band as they criss-crossed through two decades of music together. In certain moments, it felt like you could hear the groan of the earth moving beneath you — admittedly, though, that might just be because songs like “Vindavlarljod” and “Tyr” feel gargantuan in scale, like something the long-gone ancestors of Sigur Rós might have created. Midway through the show, one concertgoer stood up, throwing his arms wide with the climax of a song, before sitting back down again. It might have seemed cringeworthy somewhere else, but Wardruna’s music is just too — for lack of a better word — epic to not understand the compulsion. 

Near the show’s end, Selvik addressed the crowd directly, speaking about the importance of musical traditions and the importance of using the most powerful instrument on the planet — the human voice. He admitted that he knew many people in the room probably didn’t sing all that much, which made the crowd laugh reflexively. Hopefully, many in the audience took it as a wake-up call to prove Selvik wrong. He sang on, though, regardless of our intentions, delivering a one-song encore of Runaljod – Yggdrasil’s “Helvegen.” Though likely planned, the endless cheers of the audience kept Selvik onstage, closing out the night with a lullaby, in the form of Birna’s “Hibjørnen.” Music serves so many purposes, and the choice to close out with a song meant to serve the sacred duty of providing comfort and tenderness hammered that belief home far better than any of Wardruna’s more grandiose songs. As he walked off the stage one last time, you could sense that the crowd wanted to linger, in the hope that if they did, they wouldn’t have to leave the world Wardruna had created just yet.

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