Oh, boy... here we go. This is death metal from Sweden, and all the lyrics/themes are about Norse mythology and the such. The band released a couple of legendary demos in ’92-93 that sold out in days and then followed it up with a few more legendary records. THE GOOD: This isn’t your typical death metal. The vocals, while growled, have more of a range, if at all possible, and there’s some inflection and enunciation here and there, not just one monotonous 20-word grunt. The guitar work is excellent, with some badass melodies all over the place, technical riffing everywhere, and even a few semi-shredding solos (I kinda get the feeling they’re holding back). The drums are fast, technical, with cool fills, nice blast beats, all sorts of double bass peppered throughout. THE BAD: The bass is a little lost in the mix, but that’s to be expected, this ain’t Primus. The drums, especially the double bass, have this “corn popping” sound to them that make me a bit uncomfortable. They also tend to get a bit repetitive. Furthermore, the pace has been slowed down considerably. The album is definitely more of a mid-tempo work and speed comes in scattered bursts, as if randomly thrown in for a cool effect after the album was done. Lastly, the lyrics are cheesy as all fuck. I mean, it’s one thing to occasionally sing about Viking gods, mythology, folklore, wars and so on, but to make that topic the central theme of your band is overkill to the nth degree. At least it’s not about faeries and dragons and knights in steel armor and magic powers and... cough*Rhapsody** cough*silly European ass-clowns*cough....At least the music is good enough to more than make up for it. THE VERDICT: It’s a great album, definitely worth adding AND playing, but there are a few flaws which prevent it from becoming the best the band has ever done, and it’s not “a breath of fresh air to a stagnant scene”, which many people claim it to be. Plus, I’m hard to please once I’ve come to expect great things from a band. Still, great death metal, and I’d even buy it.



Recommended Tracks:
1) Excellent opener, cool drums, nice riffs.
2) The bells! Intro is highly unoriginal, but the rest of the song kicks major ass with one riff being played over and over at varying speeds.
3) Definitely more melodic and slower.
4) Doomy intro, then the song rips into you.
5) More melody, with creepy vocals.
7) More creepy vocals with cool melodies and some spoken parts. Great song!

Don’t be thrown off by my nitpicking, I like this album a lot!