Most folk or Viking metal tends not be dark enough for my tastes. The so-called folk elements are often more on par with Leprechaun dance tracks. This Danish band is darker and more aggressive, than most . The melodies layered over this have more of a epic anime sound to them, which makes them not as heavy as if they did not have it but I get that that is their thing. The massive symphonic sound of the opener reminds me of Dimmu. "Black Clad" is a more straight forward metal march. As with a great many metal bands who step on the gas in an order to be harder and faster some of the groove of songwriting gets buried. This can be felt on "See the Dragons Ride" .
As the chugs begin to run together what is apparent is how their more deliberate moments work much better than when they go racing off to chase dragons . Just dropping things down to an acoustic guitar in the middle is kind of played out unless it flows better in the song, yet that does not stop them from trying. Without that things begin to run together and it is an endless stream of chugging. The machine gun charge of double driving "the Bounty of Flesh and Bone" goes to show epic alone is not enough. This is a similar problem Amon Amarth has though , I take these guys more seriously than them The vocals do limit what they can do as this is all pretty one dimensional metal. When sung vocals are finally employed it's too little too late.
"Battle For Middle Earth" is darker, but as a whole by this point in the album the overall sound is nothing more than your average European death metal band. Some songs just work better than others. This one being on the more effective side. Just because the songs fail to hook me on the first listen some I was able to appreciate more after another listen. "Andvari's Curse" being one of these. Nothing is reinventing the wheel here when it comes to metal. They just accomplished what they set out to do with this one better than the bulk of the other songs. Where "Gods of War" runs together with everything else I heard here , the last song has more distinct melodies thanks to the guitars. I will give this one an 8, which is very fair considering they accomplished what they set out to do and the only problem for me is it runs together due to the emphasis being on the metallic aggression which might not be enough for me to make this something I would put in regular rotation, but for fans of darker euro death metal with Viking undertones, you will appreciate more than I do.
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