In "An In-Depth Interview with Wardruna on their Brilliant Norwegian Roots Music" with Louder Than War, Gaal and Einar Selvik characterize their performances as acting as a musical ritual in which they conjure the primal wilderness of the Nordic Bronze Age. Blending the theatrics of elk skin-drums, choral chanting, instruments made of animal bones, Rune stones and amulets, and the resulting conjuring of the past through music is chronicled by The Guardian in their, "'The Drum Needed a Blood Sacrifice': The Rise of Dark Nordic Folk". Sharing a kinship with other pagan ritualistic music of central and northern Europe, like that of Heilung and Danheim, the music of Wardruna belongs to a new strain of dark folk music that draws from traditions in the Bronze, and Norse Age, which the New York Times portrays as, "The Sound of the Vikings, With a Heavy Metal Twist", as it moves to hybridize these traditions into a 21st century neo-gothic sound. The process of approaching the past was described to Revolver Magazine by Christopher Juul of Heilung, "Denmark's Heilung are Creating 'Amplified History' With Human Bones". "In order to connect to what was before," says Juul, "you have to disconnect from what is now.". Speaking with NME, Wardruna's co-founder, Einar Selvik maps their own musical traversing of past and present, "Wardruna Call on ‘the Wisdom of the Past’ to Soundtrack Hit TV show ‘Vikings’". At the time of the interview, having completed an album cycle over the course of seven years with, "Runaljod: Gap Var Ginnunga", "Runaljod: Yggdrasil", and 2016's "Runaljod: Ragnarok", "Norse Code: Wardruna's Runic Trilogy Transformed Norway's Musical Landscape", they remain steadfast in continuing their evolving hybridization of the sounds of an ancient Nordic past, and a new modern music of their own design.
These themes are touched on by The Quietus in their, "The Terror of Stagnation: Gaahl of Wardruna", and "Ragnarok & Roll: Einar Selvik of Wardruna Interviewed", and manifest in the following set of works in 2018's "Skald", and "Kvitravn" of 2021. The two albums resulted in the first major tours of the United States, which took them to Seattle's National Nordic Museum, The Neptune Theatre, and a rescheduled performance at The Moore in late 2021 after the delays of the coronavirus pandemic. This year, Wardruna bring their sonic rituals to domestic stages across North America with west coast dates in San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle. Their most recent album offers an expansion of the sound heard on "Kvitravn" and the Runaljod trilogy before it, "Birna" bridges their interpretation of Nordic traditional music and a sound not dissimilar to the notable 1980s gothic-inflected orchestral world music of Dead Can Dance. All of the above might lead listeners to perceive Wardruna as purveyors of old ways, from a distant past and culture, yet as plumbed "A Kind Of Magic: Wardruna Teach Us Ourselves Again" their music aspires to help us understand ourselves in the modern world today. Opening for them on this tour will be another modern voice of folk and blues traditions, made hybrid and contemporary in her neo-gothic explorations of the yearning soul, existentialist thought, and a ritualistic kinship with Wardruna's speaking with the natural world. The music of Chelsea Wolfe has acted as a hybridization of gothic rock, blues, folk, doom metal and even recently, electronic subgenres. In recent years the songwriter has "Embracing Her Inner Wisdom" and moved beyond alcohol addiction, discovered new passions, and in her taking of a singular pathless path to her "Gothic Heart", forged a musical amalgamation of all of these forms.
