"Hugsjá" is the second full length album from IVAR BJØRNSON & EINAR SELVIK. Members of ENSLAVED and WARDRUNA originally, have come together to create a Folk Metal, World Music project. With much acclaim on their first collaboration "Skuggsjá", they are back with "Hugsjá", which was first performed at Bergen International Festival in 2017 as part of the historic relevance around the concert series. It was then recorded and became their sophomore effort that was released in April 2018. The album comes in with eleven tracks and a listening time of just over an hour.

The opening track, "Hugsjá" comes in very lightly for the first 26 seconds. At that point there is some intense Middle Eastern elements that blend beautifully with a more Folk sounding track. The vocals are robust and deep, but very clean, however not quite to the operatic level. The four-and-a-half-minute track had me completely entranced and hooked. "WulthuR", track two, is something I'd imagine hearing when a fleet of Viking ships where rowing inward toward my lands. The horns, the musicianship; it's all so entrancing. It took me four tries to get even just the first sentence written, because this one transports me to my inner world. Being an instrumental, it's much easier for that to happen as you listen through one of the best tracks I've heard in years.

 As each track continued over the course of the remaining hour, I realized that this one was different. This album is fantasy, but real life. It is inner worlds, but also without. It is past, but also present and future. As each track continued, I kept being pulled in to each track, each chorus, each instrument, each vocal, and each note for the pure beauty they extract. "Ni Døtre av Hav" drips emotion through their music while "Fornjot" has the same effect through powerful male vocals. "Nytt Land" takes a little bit of a different turn with deeper, richer drum but it doesn't lose that abundant worldly feeling. There is your heavy and hard-hitting Metal, that is great, but then there is this. The lighter side of Folk Metal that has many facets and elements that have created an absolute masterpiece. IVAR BJØRNSON & EINAR SELVIK has mastered the musical world with the release of "Hugsjá". This is an outstanding album.