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| #FOR FANS OF: Viking, Amon Amarth |
Vanir is a band that, on paper, should be buttering my bread. A thick layer of bass clouds the mix while shafts of light break through in choral cries. Chest-pounding rhythms stomp through meaty melodic guitar riffs and images of grizzled ancients thrown about by massive waves complete the atmosphere of “Ironside” as landfall comes with a tide of chaos. The murky melancholy of glorious battle is brought by thunderous drumming, raging rhythms, and soloing six strings aching to accentuate the intensity of peril amidst the clashing of shield walls.
There is a palpable zeal in this dense almost atonal delivery, one as colorless as a collage of weathered stones and fading runes. The massive marching momentum of 'Allfather' cracks you across the face with a flying riff on occasion or a solo that spurs sails forward, but end up crashing into staggering waves of plodding verses and forgettable choruses that salt the wounds opened by such heartfelt moments. Attempts to outdo Bathory in atmosphere fall painfully flat as this flawlessly clean delivery roots itself in a groundwork of stiff blackened death aesthetic and the surrounding yawns of choir and synth make bleak what should be the clenching of a triumphant gauntleted fist. There is little to characterize this band in its own space, merely a series of tropes thrown at a template so basic and phoned in that it's clear why this band is entirely forgotten in the overflowing sea of folk, extreme, and viking themed metal bands populating Scandinavia and swarming scenes the world over with a reach that would make their ancestors weep.
The opening song, “Væringjar” is very much a testament to what you'll hear throughout the rest of the album. Melodic riffs with death metal aesthetic, a very Amon Amarth similarity as this folk metal overruns its power metal presentation with the harsh vocals and bass-heavy thunder of this modern more brash brood. Hulking melodies majestically flow like the grizzled beard of a great warrior, his outstretched arm gripping a rope as waves toss his boat to and fro, a blizzard fueling the large square sail as “Ironside” tumbles to tears of riffs and sprays of double bass. However, beyond the theme of songs like “Ulfhednar” about wolf-skin wearing berserkers of old, the energetic “Shieldwall” opening with a sample from the television show “Vikings” before crashing into its murky production, or “Einherjer”, named for the fallen who are brought to Valhalla, the album revels in an epically stagnant blandness that swamps over the wide gaps between its richest moments.
The Amon Amarth style flows too obviously when melody comes up. A guitar moment in “Einherjer” is taken right out of Judas Priest's “You've got Another Thing Coming” and is easily found in Amon Amarth's “The Beheading of a King”, “An Ancient Sign of Coming Storm”, and “Under the Northern Star”, but altogether is best shown in Amon Amarth's take on Judas Priest in “Burning Anvil of Steel”. This is totally derivative and its rise is the sort of blackened quip that Primordial employs to great release throughout 'Redemption at the Puritan's Hand' among many other black metal offerings that plunge into the ethereal sea in submarines of blast beats for a weekend of “Murmaider”. The reality is though, this moment is a meaty rip off of the opening riff to “She Sells Sanctuary” by The Cult, yet another derivative metal moment that I cannot unhear. Funny how the biggest standout in this release is also its most cliched moment, making an album that's supposed to be brash, grandiose, and powerful fall directly onto its face.
As Amon Amarth enters a new era of creative bankruptcy so epic that the government of Sweden will need to bail the band out in order to prop up its Dethklokian economy, this depression spreads to its Danish cousins as Vanir defaults on its loans from the viking cliché while making music as absent of life as the graves it robs for an identity. The reality is that this album isn't blatantly awful and doesn't feature any flubs. There's no single moment of cringe, save for the clean singing in the German vocalized “Fejd”, and the album becomes a flat plane of plain music. 'Allfather' is astonishingly average and makes Amon Amarth sound fresh and still vibrant in comparison, which is all sorts of sad when considering just how out of steam Vanir's Swedish cousins are. For an album that attempts to sound so monumental in aesthetic, its execution is so bland and blatant a rip off that it makes for a forgettable and disappointing listen when opening an ear a bit more beyond the band's fantastic presentation. (Five_Nails)
(Mighty Music - 2019)
Score: 65