It complements the palm-muted gouging but also can get on top of the mix. There’s gravel and cold salt water in his voice. It helps that Johann Hegg isn’t one of those metal vocalists who seems in danger of getting sunk in the low end. “Destroyer of the Universe” could rival “Twilight of the Thunder God” in its chorus, yet it starts with more guttural, speeding death rhythms. “The Last Stand of Frej” may provide the best example of this on the album, moving from a dirge-like verse with a pleasingly strange progression to the band’s usual pounding menace. Once again, Amon Amarth is a model of the thrilling interlock that any band should have, whether savaging the underground or longing for shiny hard-rock hooks.Īgain, the band brings the satisfaction of simplicity to technically versatile songwriting. For as stately and epic as it is, there’s no fat, no drag of the ponderous. Early into opening track “War of the Gods,” it becomes busy with 16th-note drums and tremolo-picked guitar notes, yet it never feels too busy for its own good. The World from 2003 and Twilight Of The Thunder God from 2008 - the band’s eighth album is carnage writ absolute. Our blond-mammoth war buddies don’t much change their outlook on the new Surtur Rising, nor do they tire of it. He doesn’t bother with a subtle range of emotions, because he’s occupied, from his soul to his skull collection, with a few very solid ones: loyalty, glory-lust, pitiless determination, and pride in his ability to slay. Its seamless meld of death-metal agony and Iron Maiden-style songwriting sounds like the man you’d want at your side in combat. Amon Amarth’s power comes not from all the references to Yggdrasil and Asgaard and the like, but from evoking times (real or mythical) in which civilization revolved around the momentous import of war. The band’s rune-like fonts and references to Norse myths and Viking battles are only a sign of what’s at the core. Swedish five-piece Amon Amarth stays in the latter camp and pillages it too, playing melodic death-metal songs of fearlessness and bloodthirsty honor. Some hard rock fuels itself on anxiety and doubt, some on an absolute clarity of purpose. Every Friday, The Metal Examiner delves metal’s endless depths to present the genre’s most important and exciting albums.Īmon Amarth: Surtur Rising ( Metal Blade, 3/28/11)Īmon Amarth: “War of the Gods”
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