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Amon Amarth: Once sent from the golden hall

16/06/10 || Altmer

Vikings. Mead. Trampling performed by lots of hairy Norsemen. Is that what you think of when you hear Amon Amarth? You’d be correct, as their debut album sounds pretty much like extremely raw death metal, way before productions got cool. Well, it’s produced all right, but you know – this shit is some motherfucken raw, actual death metal. You see, before Amon Amarth started trying to conjure up all those old-school fancy melodic riffs, they were br00tal motherfvckers.

In fact, the first atmosphere you get from this album is a fucking tank running you over. Ok, so maybe not a tank, but a bunch of dressed up versions of Yggdrasil walking across Swedish forests running over the population. Hegg’s growl is extremely raw and not as refined as on later albums, helping that less sophisticated sound. Lopez’ drums (for he still played on here) sound less jazzy and more forceful than on any of his Opeth material, but it’s not that interesting apart from the fact that the double bass is abused pretty neatly. It, again, helps to make the sound more unrefined and raw. The odd things are the weird drum patterns used on “Friends of the Suncross”. It always seems like Lopez is missing beats, but then he plays it in a different way to fit with the tempo. He is also more varied than the extremely monotonous Fredrik Andersson.

So, guys, what about the actual songs? Fantastic. “Victorious March” is a classic tune and something that fits in every Amon Amarth set list even today. “The Dragons’ Flight Across the Waves” is a more mid paced tune, but that doesn’t matter – it grooves like, as someone notorious around these parts would say, hell and cannons. In fact, this album sounds like hell and cannons descended from some Scandinavian Ragnarok – maybe you could compare it to that Icelandic volcano? It’s hot, molten eruption metal. You know what I love most about this album? The way they integrate those neat little melodic harmonies with the thumping riffage and double bass bonanzas. Exquisite shit. I fucken dig.

The only thing that I would like on this album is some more clarity to the guitar tone, which is a bit fuzzy and kind of deprecates the sound of the heavy riffs. Their guitar sound ruled on the past few albums, so it’s definitely possible – and even before that, the guitars were clearer than on this mess. And that’s funny because I am listening to the remastered reissue. So I don’t know what you guys did with the guitar tone because it sounds really muddy and muffled.

Speaking of reissues, the album’s packaging is really neat and comes with the whole performance of this album live in Bochum. It also has weird cardboard cutouts, I think it’s of guitarist Olavi Mikkonen. Anyhow, it looks really fucken cool so if you didn’t snatch up the original years ago before I even knew about the existence of this band, take the reissue – it’s really neat. It comes with notes from the band on the song lyrics and reminisces of the studio too, so if you are a lover of that kind of thing – this album is a must.

Overall, I prefer this band’s later material from “Versus” onward, but this album is undoubtedly the best of the earlier albums, thanks to some really strong songs and excellent musicianship, so this album is still a very recommended purchase for fans into the band.

Recommendation: Make that guitar tone slightly less fuzzy.

7,5

Information
Released: 1998
Label: Metal Blade Records
Website: www.amonamarth.com
Band
Johan Hegg: vocals
Olavi Mikkonen: guitars
Anders Hansson: guitars
Ted Lundström: bass
Martin Lopez: drums

Tracklist
01. Ride for Vengeance
02. The Dragon’s Flight Across the Waves
03. Without Fear
04. Victorious March
05. Friends of the Suncross
06. Abandoned
07. Amon Amarth
08. Once Sent From The Golden Hall
09. Siegreicher Marsch (bonus track)

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