In 2021, I discovered a Swedish psych rock band called Nephila. With their woodsy, psychedelic, mind-tripping sound, their self-titled 2021 debut album sparked my fandom. I’ve listened to that record start to finish so many times that I’m shocked the needle didn’t wear holes in it.
Nephila boasts amazing talent and a lineup featuring two female lead vocalists, Stina Olsson and Josephine Asker. It was one of the most unique and exciting things I’d heard in a long time. The dynamic between the two female lead vocalists was something I had never heard done this well. In 2024, when I heard that vocalist Stina Olsson had left the band, I hoped they’d keep the dual-lead-vocalist setup, but they’d need someone as good as, if not better than, Olsson.
In 2024, Nephila did just that: with new vocalist Linn Edlund, the missing secret sauce was in place, and Nephila was about to elevate to a whole other level. The band delivered a performance at 2025’s Sweden Rock Festival that became one of the festival’s most talked-about sets, and they slowly started rolling out new music.
Finally, in 2026, we got the band’s long-awaited sophomore album, Huldra, and to say it was worth the wait is an understatement. The album kicks off with “Mother of the Woods,” which opens with a very woodsy, Jethro Tull-inspired intro before morphing into a full rock opera à la Jesus Christ Superstar or Hair, featuring a cosmically amazing guitar work.
“In Her Hands” is where the gloves came off, and shit got real. Just when I thought I had Nephila pinned down, they came right at me with this song that kicked my ass across my office. Nephila is crushing it on all levels and turned shit up to “11,” as vocalists Edlund and Asker groove with their voices as hard as the band does instrumentally.
“The Hidden Folk” dips its toes into ‘90s jam bands while keeping the grit and power of a Zeppelin song. It’s not easy or common, but they pull it off with confidence, like they are the first to do it. “Ash Their Bones” sounds like a lost Allman Brothers Band song.
At this point in the album, the diversity is so great that it becomes completely unpredictable where the next song will take me. The showstopper for me is the title track “Huldra,” where Nephila flexes their prog-rock abilities and turns out a song that sounds like one of the best Deep Purple songs never made.
I could write 5 pages about how much I love this fuckign album, but let me try to sum it up a bit. Nephil is one of the most exciting bands I have heard in the last decade or so. They are a collective of unbelievable talent who put their all into the songs instead of showboating like attention hounds. Even with the soaring, lush, emotive vocals of Edlund and Asker, they don’t detract from the rest of the band’s majestic performances.
Huldra isn’t just an album to be listened to. It’s an album to be experienced, and since its release, I have experienced it more times than I have fingers and thumbs. HULDRA grabbed me so tightly it wouldn’t let go. It still hasn’t let go, and I don’t ever want it to.
Nephila is a band that will stand the test of time for years to come, and HULDRA will be one of those albums that, 20 years from now, will very well be some young person’s gateway into the world of rock n’ roll played by a band that knows no limitations. Nephila is just getting started, folks, and if this is any indication of where they’ll take us in the future, I’ll book my ticket now and await the journey.
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