Amon Amarth – The Allfather Awakens
Metal Blade Records can count themselves fortunate to have a new album from Amon Amarth, the Swedish melodic death metal outfit that has been turning Norse mythology into music since 1992. Vocalist Johan Hegg, guitarists Olavi Mikkonen and Johan Söderberg, bassist Ted Lundström and drummer Jocke Wallgren have formed the same line-up for years, and that stability can be heard in the precision with which this thirteenth studio album has been put together. For “The Allfather Awakens”, the band went to producer Jacob Hansen in Denmark, spread over two recording sessions that were months apart, allowing the band to continue writing while touring instead of only after the tour had ended.
Odin remains the common thread, although this is not a concept album. They are mainly historically inspired stories about sacrifice and battle, packaged into ten tracks that rarely surprise but hit incredibly hard. Opener “Gjallarhorn” immediately sets the tone with a foghorn that turns into galloping double bass drums and Hegg’s unmistakable growl. The chorus is huge and compelling, exactly as you would expect from this band, and there is enough venom in the riffs to wake even the most seasoned fan.
It becomes more interesting with “Upphaf”, the first fully acoustic song in the band’s history. Where you are normally flattened by walls of guitars, here there is only sung poetry, translated from the Völuspá, accompanied by restrained acoustic sounds. It is a breather in the middle of the violence, as if the Vikings are briefly sitting around the campfire before the battle erupts again with “Die With a War Cry”. That transition works surprisingly well and shows that after thirteen albums, the band still dares to shift its own formula without throwing it overboard.
“Kvasir’s Blood” moves at a slower pace and shows that Hegg’s voice, despite decades of growling, still has its recognisable rasp. “We Rule the Waves” brings out the epic side with compelling Viking guitars, while title track “The Allfather Awakes” functions as a solid thump that sits in exactly the right place in the tracklist. Towards the end, “Oden’s Hunt” and “Ascending Like an Eagle” drop back slightly in quality compared with the rest, but even those tracks are built for the stage, where the audience will still raise its fists en masse.
What stands out is how cohesive and considered the whole thing sounds. The guitar parts by Mikkonen and Söderberg are more tightly produced than on many modern metal albums, while there remains enough room for detail so that they do not become impenetrable hammer blows. With a running time of just over forty-three minutes, the band manages to maintain the epic atmosphere without getting bogged down in repetition, something that is anything but self-evident after twelve previous albums.
It may not quite reach the classics of the past, but “The Allfather Awakens” is without doubt one of the strongest albums these Swedish veterans have delivered in recent years, and a guarantee of a devastatingly good live show. (9/10) (Metal Blade Records)
