AMON AMARTH - The Great Heathen Army
Metal Blade Records
This is album number twelve for everyone's favorite Swedish viking metal band. Yeah I bet Quorthon is spinning in his grave on that one. But hey I became an AMON AMARTH fan years ago. My first album by them was With Oden on Our Side from 2006. For me that's their best album in my not so humble opinion. I finally did get to see em on their 2009 US tour.
Now over the years I've picked up the releases from their early years as well as every new one. But I have to say from 2008's Twilight of the Thunder God to this release here this band has fell into a repetitive formula mode. Think about AC/DC or MOTORHEAD as far as a recognizable sound. That's AMON AMARTH these days. What's funny is that Twilight of the Thunder God is the album that broke them into the mainstream of metal. I still think that album was a generic over produced piece of wax worthy of mainstream losers.
So since then every one of their releases has the basics. You've got Johan Hegg's roar like death growl vocals matched up with the classic sound of Swedish melodic death metal. And of course the viking themes which after thirty years the band hasn't run out of Norse mythology song ideas, yet. And in the end you get a bunch of releases with two or three cool songs with the rest being boring crap.
So with The Great Heathen Army you've got some decent cuts like opener "Get in the Ring" which is classic Swede Melo-Deth with a damm good guitar solo. It's a good pounding tune. "Saxons and Vikings" is actually a crap song musically. But you've got three people from SAXON performing on it. We're talking about Biff Byford doing split vocals with Johan Hegg plus guitar soloing by Doug Scarratt and Paul Quinn.
I also like "Heidrun" with it's folk metal groove style. Hey pass the mead I think I'm Baldur. And that's about it for me. Like I said earlier I'm a fan and always hope for the best. But as for now, again, their best is behind them.
https://www.metalblade.com/us/
LISTEN HERE:
https://amonamarth.bandcamp.com/album/the-great-heathen-army
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