Review: Amon Amarth – Twilight of the Thunder God

Twilight of the Thunder God

Twilight of the Thunder God is the ninth studio release by the swedish melodic Death Metal band Amon Amarth. To start off I’d like to say that I am a huge fan of everything these guys have recorded so far. The sheer force behind their stuff is so great that I hardly think they should really be labeled as Melodeath.

Although Amon Amarth have never really strayed much from their original sound and theme, they just do it so damn well that it never seems even the slightest bit stagnant or overdone. And this hasn’t changed with Twilight of the Thunder God. It’s all there, heavy-as-hell guitarwork, thundering drums, roaring death growls, and the ever-present norse lyrical themes. And as always, it works.

Guitarists Olavi Mikkonen and Johan Soderberg manage to keep it heavily crunching while remaining perfectly harmonized, making up the core of AA’s sound with consistently excellent riffs. Especially on
tracks like “Tattered Banners and Bloody Flags”, “The Hero” and “Varyags of Miklagaard” is their substantial contribution heard.

This album also displays the best drumming performance by Fredrik Andersson since Versus the World, providing blastbeats so dynamic and heavy that it’s hard to sit still while listening. The frenzied roaring
of vocalist Johan Hegg just sums everything up flawlessly, and provides some of the catchiest choruses imaginable. His vocal work is particularly awesome on tracks like “Where is your God” and “Free Will Sacrifice”.

The main difference on this album is the surprising guest appearances, something AA has pretty much never done before. Roope Latvala from Children of Bodom provides a guitar solo on the title track and Apocalyptica provide a short cello interlude on “Live for the Kill”. This throws in a little extra variety without seeming too
out-of-place, and it’s a cool addition.

All in all, this is another excellent death metal release by one of my very favorite bands of the genre, and I strongly recommend it. Not just for fans, but also for anyone even slightly interested in metal. Amon
Amarth are damn hard not to like and this is one of their very best albums so far. Twilight of the Thunder God is just plain great to listen to and one of the best releases of the year.

Song Picks: Tattered Banners and Bloody Flags – Where Is Your God? – Twilight of the Thunder God

9/10 Excellent

Alright, I’m taking a break from posting, been putting alot of stuff up lately. Plus I’m turning seventeen today and I have stuff to do. Na zdrovya!

No review this week

Got too many things I want to do the rest of the weekend. Next thursday I’ll have some new albums hopefully.

Review: Metallica – Death Magnetic

Death Magnetic

This release is one of the most intensely discussed albums right now, both among various people I know and on the net. The mixed opinions seem to vary from utter disgust (often from older and ex-fans) to satisfied acknowledgement (often from newer, post-Master of Puppets fans). Having heard the entire album a few days ago, I can see that these arguments are not going to end anytime soon. I’m not particularly engaged in the argument regarding Metallica’s development over the last 12 years or so, So I’m just going to stick to reviewing the album instead of throwing in yet another opinion about the band.

Death Magnetic is the ninth studio release by the bay area metallers. As someone (I can’t remember who) commented, it sounds like the album that should have followed the Black Album back in 1991, and it would seem like Metallica may have been trying to recapture that era of their musical career somewhat.

Death Magnetic opens with “That was just your life”, which is definitely one of the best tracks on the album, strong riffs and energetic vocals reminding me of some of their earliest work. This solid opener is not, unfortunately, reflected very much in the rest of the album. The next few songs, “The End of the Line” and “Broken, Beaten and Scarred” are just plain boring, which is particularly due to the uninteresting drums and vocals (doesn’t Hetfield ever get tired of yelling ”-eah!!” in every line?). The single “The Day blah blah blah” follows this pattern aswell, and it is not until the fast and catchy ”All Nightmare Long” that anything really worth listening to is found on Death Magnetic. The rest of the album is fairly linear, the best of it cool and fast paced, the worst dull and uninventive.

To me, this album is driven completely by the guitarwork. There are some killer riffs and solos on here, but they fail to really take the album all that far. Don’t get me wrong, this is not a bad album, but it isn’t really good either. Metallica obviously tried hard, but can’t quite reach above mediocrity as a metal group. Damn, I just said my opinion about them as a band. Ah well. 

Songs Picks: That was Just your Life – All Nightmare Long – Suicide & Redemption

4/10 Lacking

Review: Scamp – Mirror Faced Mentality

Mirror Faced Mentality

Mirror Faced Mentality Is the first full-length album by the danish technical thrash metal band Scamp. I picked it up from record store the other day after having been to their live set last week.

This is an album that you need to hear a few times before you truly appreciate it. At first it reminded me a lot of technical metal bands like Meshuggah, and I was a little dissapointed that it didn’t sound more like what I had heard live the other night. My first impression didn’t last though, and after having listened to the entire album I can say this is one of the best new metal albums I’ve heard in months. 

Being thrash, the sound is comprised mainly of grinding, heavily distorted riffs and thundering, intense-as-hell drumming, which blend perfectly with each other without overpowering the rest of the music. Particularly the double pedal drumming is awesome, and is used incredibly well in songs like “Relief” and “Pressure Wave”. Lead vocalist Mikael Rise does a great job, using his roaring vocal style to add a lot of energy to the sound as well. Besides the obvious stuff, Scamp also use some unusual elements for metal, including mixing in some distorted, bass-like didgeridoo warble under the rest of the music on a few songs for a really cool effect, even though it sometimes makes it feel like they’re cramming too much into some parts.

All in all I’m very impressed with this debut album, and feel that Scamp has a great amount of potential on the scandinavian metal scene.

Song Picks: Perception  -  A Familiar Word  –  Pros and Cons  -  Relief

8/10

Upcoming Reviews

Starting tomorrow I will be posting a number of music reviews, usualy once a week or whenever. I buy/acquire a lot of music so I might as well use the blog to voice my opinion about some of it and make some recommendations. Reviews and stuff will probably mostly be about various metal-releases, but I will try and get some variation in as well. Tomorrow I’ll be posting my review of the new Mirror Faced Mentality album by the band Scamp.