Hammerheart

This is one of the most passionate albums to be found in metal. As Quorthorn's lyrics speak of the pain and suffering that the Vikings faced in the Christian slaughter with tracks like 'One Road To Asa Bay,' you feel the pain with them. An effective portrayal of the emotions of the Viking people and their beliefs.

There is one great issue with this album: You cannot listen to it: Give the album two minutes and you chant along with the battlehymns on this album. Give it another three minutes and that's you fully dressed in the re-enactment kit, a horn of mead in your hand, and a sword in the other; whilst you've just dug out that LEGO Dragonship your parents gave you for your 4th birthday, and you try to balance your 250 lbs (including beer gut) on its tip.

The album clocks in at about 57 minutes for 7 songs - the tremendous length of each of the hymns allowing for plenty of warchanting and pillaging your entire bedroom closet.

It picks of rather quiet, with the waves beating against the shore, with a quiet part the follow it before "Shores in Flames" kicks off and you find yourself toasting to your Germanic ancestors. The fury continues in an epic style through "Valhalla", "Baptised in Fire and Ice" and "Father to Son", until you reach the accoustic "Song to Hall up High", which honors Valfather Odin and is a truly emotional song. "Home of Once Brave" is again a battle hymn highlighted by guitars that make you seem in battle. Finally you reach "One Rode to Asa Bay", which has to be the best song on the album. It starts off with a man galloping through the woods, before you have the main song kicking off, carrying on until you reach the Solo at about 5:30, and then the short accoustic part at about 7:30 until the end - all the time able to sympathise with the suffering of the people under the allegedly not peaceful christianisation of Scandinavia.

To talk of the music itself - the studio is obviously a garage, and the sound quality is not always the best, but quite acceptable. The guitars are heavy and distorted, but their riffling allows enough scope for plenty of epic feeling, which is highlighted by Quorthon's vocals that are sometimes plainly clain, yet sometimes with a raspy touch quite reminding of a vikingr. The songwriting is amazing, and the sporadically used keyboards only add to the truly epic atmosphere, etc etc - so by the time you have finished the album you are put before the haunting choice whether to play it again or to play it again.

Now of course, don't expect this album to be in your possession for too long - you are much more likely to find it abducted by your mates leaving a note that they have borrowed it, on a rather frequent basis.

Although all of Bathory's viking-inspired albums are absolutely great, if you are only going to buy one of them, buy Hammerheart: I've owned it for some years now and there hardly passes a day without listening to it; a true masterpiece that will be such until the end of time; so if you are a fan of the genre (although I know plenty of people who favor other genres who LOVE this album!),it is THE album for you to have.

With `Blood Fire Death', Bathory marked the beginning of a new era and marked the arrival of a new genre - Viking metal. Although it may sound ridiculous, this genre, one which merges with the finer aspects of black metal, was very strong in its heyday. When it comes to finding a finer Viking metal band on Earth, only acts like Enslaved can compete with the gloriousness that is Bathory, spearheaded by the late-and-great Tomas Forsberg, also known as Quorthon. `Blood Fire Death', as the title of my review for it suggests, isn't my favourite Bathory album but by heck is it still fantastic. Although only a mere two years had passed since `Blood Fire Death' (1988) was released, there are some notable changes on `Hammerheart' (1990) and it's in these very changes that marks Bathory's step-up from greatness to Godliness. Some of the changes were already being placed in motion on the fourth full-length, `Blood Fire Death', but they were now in full swing in the Spring of 1990, a fitting season for Bathory to be reborn again within a new sub-genre.

It's a tussle between this album, `Hammerheart' and `Twilight of the Gods', an album which only came out a year after the former, as to which is my favourite from the Swedish godfather of Viking metal. Although neither are flawless, they come pretty damn close, in my humble opinion. Judging by the material on `Blood Fire Death', it's easy to see how Bathory evolved from one moment to the next. As I said, there are traits to this album which can be seen on the aforementioned full-length and vice versa. However, I tend to feel those few differences between the two make all the difference when it comes to finding a definitive winner within Bathory's discography. The production, for instance, seems a lot stronger on `Hammerheart'. The 1988 full-length is a lot gruffer and rawer in its approach, though that isn't to say that this album doesn't embrace distortion and feedback from the powerful guitars. The drums are just as stern, too. They provide a back-up power source to the guitars, which are generally central to the album.

The production seems more accessible to me here than it did on the previous album although much of Bathory's acoustic work and such on `Blood Fire Death' tended to feature during the slower, more fragmented passages in songs, whereas they not spring up all over the place and manage to fit in seamlessly no matter how the production is affecting the atmosphere. `Valhalla' is a good example of this. The song opens with an acoustic guitar alongside an electric guitar which is giving off a lot of distortion and feedback. Despite the fact that the acoustics have strong and prideful synths to compete with, too, they're never overshadowed and use the full width of their appeal to draw the listener in time and again. I do tend to feel that `Twilight of the Gods' has a better use of acoustics but this album isn't half bad either when it comes to the song writing and song structure aspects. Each song contains its own moments of glory and longevity within the mind, whereas `Blood Fire Death' certainly had one or two forgettable songs amidst some truly gigantic one's like the self-titled track, or `A Fine Day to Die', for example.

Whereas that album featured only two or three truly mammoth songs, this album has several more, including the likes of `Valhalla', which is one of many to feature a strong use of layered vocal approaches, including Quorthon's typically gruff style. The use of cleanly chanted vocals isn't exactly sparse but they're certainly use sparingly, although always enough to satisfy the listeners needs and wants whilst maintaining a level of desire within them that leaves them craving for more, as shown on songs like `Baptised in Fire and Ice', a truly wonderful song which mixes the various vocal approaches well, tending to use the cleaner background chants more so than most other songs, though not shying away from the usual gruff approach, one which resonates within me and makes me think of courage, pride and a true belief in the nature of the mythological inspired lyrics. Having said that, `Twilight of the Gods' is certainly better equipped than the two albums before it at using profound imagery through the evocative lyrics, though it cannot be argued that the imagery on this album and the one previous to it are sheepish or underwhelming because that isn't the case.

I have never listened to an album or an artist until I found Bathory whereby I felt the lyrics were extremely important despite the fact that I cannot relate to them on an emotional level or because I have been through the exact same experience that the singer is singing about but that is the case here and especially on the next album. The lyrics are truly evocative, sparking endless streams of images of mythological creatures, landscapes and riding into battle over blood soaked grounds. The brilliant `One Rode to Asa Bay' is, in particular, a true highlight of this and the album. The samples at the beginning of the track meld so well into the overall story of the song and indeed the album. The structures to each song, in fact, are so well thought out and magically crafted together with supreme talent. Even the artwork seems well thought out and fits in so well with the lyrics to the aforementioned song, one that stands up as one of Bathory's best. As with most of the songs on the album, it's full of melodies and a general infectious catchiness which is unheard of in Bathory's early days. As per usual, this is