Release Date May 29th, 2026
Format LP/CD/Digital
Genre Dark Folk / Progressive Metal
Origin Italy/Austria
Rakinua is a dark folk/progressive project built around Velis and Madame Noctinebra. Velis handles lead vocals and percussions, with Madame Noctinebra adding narrations, percussions and vocals. The live tribe expands the project with Fabio D’Amore, Sybell Cristina Spadotto, Anna Eggersberger, Alessandro Pedretti and Gabriele Boz. "Esi Um Ninu, Heal Us, Mother" is their debut album, released through Dusktone Records, with its concept tied to Alpine sacrificial sites, ancient rites, Raetic symbols and an oracle voice.
Esi Um Ninu – Heal Us, Mother" is built around the fall of a priestess whose offerings aren't enough to stop her gods from turning on her people, a concept delivered through the voice of an oracle threading through fifteen tracks. The premise is genuinely compelling, and Rakinua commit to it completely. Every track belongs to the same ceremonial space, and the album's sixteen tracks hold together as one long ritual arc rather than a collection of songs looking for a theme.
Sonically, the references are clear enough, Heilung's tribal pulse, Wardruna's atmospheric weight, Myrkur's vocal rawness, with progressive thread woven, but the album carves its own lane through the use of Raetic language and symbols, giving it a textural authenticity that most ritual folk records don't bother reaching for. Velis's vocals and Madame Noctinebra's narrations complement each other across the album's runtime without either overpowering the other. The mix by Francesco Marzona and D'Amore is spacious and alive.
Where the album asks for patience is in its sprawl. Sixteen tracks across a concept this crowded is a real investment, and not every moment earns the same level of attention. The "Vision Of The Oracle" interludes serve the story, but they stretch the pacing across the album's midsection. Listeners willing to stay inside the world get rewarded, the payoff is cumulative rather than immediate. This is the kind of debut that grows with repeated listening, not one that hands everything over in the first spin.
|8.0
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