Category: Audio Published on Thursday, 26 February 2009 00:00 Written by Graham Mills Hits: 153
9 "Viking Metal". Hmm, interesting name for a (sub) genre, that. Interesting, but very, very accurate. Enslaved write songs of old Norse mythology, battle and glory better than any others around. Great tales of Viking raids and slaughtering of Christians are told in epic slices of extremely technically played Black Metal and violent, inspired vocals. Opener Storre enn Tid - Tyngre enn Natt (Larger than Time - Heavier than Night for those not fluent in Norwegian) is a fantastic piece of extreme, emotional music. It starts off calmly enough, with calm melodic playing, before blasting into a full-on majestic BM assault. Ormgard (The Hive) is, however, my absolute favourite track from this album. It's intro is possibly one of the best I've heard from this genre, and the rest of this 5 minute track is equally stunning. Other highlights of the release are Stjerneheimen (StarHome), which features a spectacular piece of guitaring at the very end, and Aeges Draum (Aege's Dream) which features too many musical changes of pace to count. An absolutely fantastic piece of work, essential to any serious Black Metaller's collection.