Amon Amarth - Twilight of the Thunder God
So the new Amon Amarth record sure doesn't need me to review it. I'm sure that metal blade has a whole team of long-haired, jackbooted goons to push this record into the homes of everyone who even sort of sort of likes metal from here to Taiwan with methods normally associated with the fucking Khmer Rouge*.
Having said that, I'm going to go ahead and review this record anyway, because it kicks ass and I'm going to see them in five days or so and I'm pretty psyched.
Shortly after this record came out, Nader, my band's bass player, text messaged me (yeah, I know) saying "do you think anyone would buy us writing songs about being the guardians of Asgard?" I had to write him back a rather deflated "no." No one would buy us being the guardians of Asgard.
Amon Amarth, on the other hand? Maybe so.
I mean, look at these guys:
I would actually believe that those guys are the guardians of something called Asgard, and I don't even fucking know what Asgard is. It sounds tough, though, and those guys look pretty mean.
Now granted, when you actually see them, and the singer's gut is spilling over his leather pants like so:
you realize that it's all in good fun, and they're probably just regular dudes who like to sit around, drink copious amounts of beer, and watch TV, but man, when you line them up like that in the promo pic they look pretty tough, eh?
I mean, I bought a skull shaped mug this weekend at a Czechoslovakian street fest, but even when I hold that I still look like a giant wimp.
As for their sound, Amon Amarth call themselves a death metal band. Everyone else calls them a Viking metal band. I just tend to think of them as anthemic, and I always like anthemic.
I think it was Chris Bickel who once wrote that Tragedy is like Hot Water Music for crust kids, in that they just take every generic riff from said genre put them next to each other, yell everything kids who listen to that genre want to hear over them, and turn it up to 11. Well, Amon Amarth is Tragedy for metal kids.
There's really nothing particularly original about Amon Amarth. The riffs are generic and used up, the vocals are pretty standard, the drums just kind of keep a beat, but somehow it all comes together in a way so glorious and fist-pumping that I wish I could somehow convert it to a visual and have said visual tattooed on the inside of my eyelids.
It's as if Amon Amarth heard "Born to Run" and said "ha! Child's play!" Then they heard "For Those About to Rock We Salute You" and said "close, but not quite!" Then they heard "Freebird" and said "you know, that's pretty anthemic, but how about we show you how it's really done!"
So this record basically picks up where the last one left off. This album definitely has the "album after a breakthrough album" thing going on, however. The breakthrough album for a band always seems to be real uneven, with some incredible songs, some good songs, and some forgettable songs. That's exactly how I would describe "With Oden on our Side." The follow-up album to the breakthrough album is always then incredibly consistent, with barely any dead spots, but nothing that stands out as much as the incredible songs on the breakthrough album. I would say that describes "Twilight of the Thunder God" pretty well. The formula is in perfectly in place, and every song on the record is great, but there aren't one or two I can kind of look at and say "that's one of the best songs I've ever heard" like I could with songs like "Valhall Awaits Me" and "Cry of the Blackbirds" on the last record.
So overall, Amon Amarth hits one out of the park, it just lacks any moments for me that really stick with me like some from the last record. The closest there is would be that crushing "Guardians of Asgard" chorus. There are, however, literally no dead spots at all on the whole disc. It's a real solid listen from front to back.
I'm sure now that I've reviewed the new Amon Amarth disc those boys will really take off, huh? I sure hope so. I mean, they've been working so hard, I figured I should give them a break and really give them that Todd push they've probably been hoping for. Maybe next week I'll go ahead and review that new Metallica record everyone's talking about. I'm sure those nice guys could use a little bump from being on this site, too.
*The kids call this "street teaming" and participate in it despite it's being banned by the U.N. as inhumane back in 1994 after 10 windbreaker clad hardcore kids drowned in Earth Crisis stickers at a hardcore show attended by some particularly sadistic Victory Records "street teamers."
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