So we've gone through in some detail what Viking Metal is, now it's time to check out some of the major --- and minor --- players in this field. There are some who stand head and shoulders above the rest, glaring down with battle-maddened eyes filled with bloodlust as they swing their heavy, two-handed broadswords in one hand with the practiced ease of a warrior born, laughing darkly as they stand there, spattered from head to toe in blood. Some of it may be theirs, most is probably that of their enemies: it matters not. These men live for the fight, the hunt, the chase and most of all, the gory, bloodsoaked and glorious victory. They are the spearhead of Viking Metal, the shock troops, the berserkers. These men are always first into any fray, and never leave until all their enemies are dead at their feet, or they have given their own lives --- while making their foes pay dearly for their prize --- and assured themselves of a place of honour in Valhalla.
So where else would we start but with one of these, perhaps the greatest of them all, and acknowledged as a driving, even creating force, in the world of Viking Metal? They could quite literally be called the fathers of the subgenre, and they are generally credited with releasing the first ever Viking Metal album.
Starting off as a Black Metal band, Bathory's Quorthon became interested in the tales of the Scandinavian gods and the mythical battles of both the
Aesir and the more earthly Vikings, and after four albums he turned his creative focus towards fashioning a style of metal that would encompass, glorify and remember those ancient warriors and their gods. In total, Bathory released six albums that could be said to be Viking Metal; though “Blood fire death” does have elements of the subgenre, it's mostly seen as a Black Metal album. Quorthon was preparing a four-volume epic when he passed away in 2004, so sadly only two albums were finished.
The first one I want to look at is the album that showed the transition from Black to Viking Metal. It's that one I mentioned above, “Blood fire death”, and it's our first guest review, courtesy of Briks.
Artist: Bathory
Album: Blood Fire Death
Year: 1988
Genre: 1st wave black metal
Chronological position: Fourth album
I have written about Bathory twice before, including a review of this album. I gave it a 4/5 rating (which really was too high, as it didn't really grab me at the time) and moved on. It was the third black metal album I heard, so I was not yet used to the extreme subgenre. I liked the long, epic tracks: “A Fine Day to Die” and “Blood Fire Death”, but I dismissed the rest as uninteresting, generic black metal stuff (even though I didn't know crap about black metal).
Oh, how wrong I was.
Recently, I've started to appreciate black metal. So I revisited the album, and thought “wow, this is actually pretty cool”. Then I listened to it again. And again. Then I yanked the 4/5 rating right up to the deserved 5/5.
Blood Fire Death is credited with being the first viking metal release ever, but that's not really accurate, as there are only two viking metal tracks on it. After a three-minute long intro, “Odens Ride Over Nordland”, we are introduced to the first one, “A Fine Day to Die”. It starts out with some mellow singing over acoustic guitar and then turns into a fist-raising war anthem that makes me want to go out and buy a sword, hang it up on my bedroom wall right beside my grim Brvce Springsteen poster, and maybe take it down once in a while for cutting carrots in the name of Odin. Then we enter the middle area of the album, AKA the one I didn't learn to appreciate before just recently. Tracks three through seven are all brutal thrash songs that make
Reign in Blood sound like a Beatles album. “For All Those Who Died” might be my favourite of the lot: that steady-pounding drum beat and repetitive buzzsaw riff makes me want to bang my head till my neck snaps. The closing track (if you exclude the outro), “Blood Fire Death”, is my definite favourite song on the album. It's the second viking metal epic, and it makes me want to take my carrot sword out in the woods and start furiously striking a tree while I'm dressed in a nerdy, black cape. It's that great.
TRACKLISTING
1. Oden's ride over Nordland
2. A fine day to die
3. The golden walls of Heaven
4. Pace 'til death
5. Holocaust
6. For all those who died
7. Dies irae
8. Blood fire death
9. Outro
Trollheart says:
Thanks Briks for that. Appreciate it. I said I wouldn't alter your text and I didn't, apart from spellchecking (which was again unnecessary), though I did add in a tracklisting as I prefer there always to be one. Great job!
After this Bathory went in a completely Viking Metal direction which would only be broken by a two year spell when they would release two albums that fell outside the Viking Metal remit, 1994's “Requiem” and the following year's “Octagon”, after which Quorthon would return to the themes of Viking Metal.
Hammerheart --- Bathory --- 1990 (Noise)
As in most of his albums, Quorthon is the man here: he writes and composes all the music, plays everything except bass and drums, and even produces the album. I'm not quite sure what the opening sound effect is meant to convey --- a sword being cooled in water at a smithy? --- but “Shores in flames” starts off with acoustic guitar and a very clean vocal, something which later bands would ditch in favour of more shouted, grunted, snarly vocals. A heavy electric guitar then comes in with attendant percussion as the song ramps up, and it's one of two which are the longest tracks, almost eleven minutes apiece. Well, this one is the longest, at a few seconds over that. Mind you, of the eight tracks that make up this album, few dip below the seven minute mark, leaving aside the closing instrumental. There's power and grandeur in the song now as it sweeps along, a darker but still intelligible vocal relating the tale of the Norsemen as they make ready to set out on another raid:
”It says: Set your sails/ And let me take your ship to foreign shores/ Take farewell of those near you/ And your land of the North!” Backing vocals swell in a kind of tribal chant, perhaps the sort of thing the Vikings would sing as they rowed towards their next conquest.
This song is so good and entrancing that it's already approaching the eleven-minute mark before I realise it, and it's succeeded by one almost as long, as the men of the North give praise to their gods in “Valhalla”. I'm sure you all know, but just in case you don't, Valhalla was the place where every Viking hoped to go when he died; the hall of the brave, where men could sit side-by-side with warriors of legend, heroes and perhaps even the gods of Asgard themselves. But only the brave and the valorous got to reach that place, taken there by the Valkyries (remember Battleroar?) who would ift them from the battlefield and carry them to their honoured place. It's a heavy, powerful opening, very dramatic and portentous, till it begins rocking along on guitar riffs and mid-paced drums, though as yet no vocal as we head into the third minute.
”God of Thunder! cries Quorthon when the vocal does begin,
”Who crack the sky/ Swing your Hammer /Way up high!” Not the most original of lyrics I'll grant you, but they capture the worship of Thor, Norse god of thunder and of battle, whom all the Vikings revered as one of the most powerful and strongest of the gods, and upon whom they would call to bless their attacks. The chant accompanies the singing and really gives the impression of an army heading into battle, singing gloriously, unafraid of death and with only bloodlust and the desire for plunder on their minds. As befits any prayer evoking the thunder god, loud booming peals roll across the sky as Thor gives his answer, and the Vikings plunge on. And again, a ten-minute track is over before I even realise it.
Pounding drumming is joined by chugging guitar as “Baptised in fire and ice” takes it to another level, and although it's a heavy, almost angry song, it's important because it shows us the other side of the Vikings, the side in tune with nature and explains their respect for their land:
”I grew and learned respectfully/ The Earth, Wind, Water and the sky/ The powers that decided the weather/ And rules both the dark and light/ I heard the voices of the spirits/ Of the forest call my name/ I saw the Hammer way up high/ Cause lightning in the rain.” We hear of the youth of a young Viking and how he is brought up, not only to be brave and fearless, but to respect the traditions of his people. There's also a seriously killer guitar riff throughout the song. “Father to son” opens like a movie, with the sounds of a village, a baby crying, steps walking, a dog barking before machinegun guitar punches through as the blacksmith looks at his newborn son, determined to ensure he grows into a fine young warrior. The beat slows a little, though not much, making this more a cruncher and less a heads-down fretfest, though there's plenty of guitar in it.
The shortest track then, bar the instrumental at the end, “Song to hall up high” is a hymn to Odin (or Oden if you prefer) as a warrior gives praise and hopes to die gloriously and earn his seat in Valhalla. It's almost acoustic, with choral vocals backing the guitar in a chant that echoes the warrior's prayer. A full Viking chorus then accompanies Quorthon (though in reality they're probably all his own voice) before we slam into “Home of once brave”, which swaggers, marches and strides along with the arrogance of warriors born claiming their birthright. Vvornth really does well here on the drumkit, creating the atmosphere against which Quorthon's guitar growls and snarls its way. A great sense of pride and power in this song, and the melody is really catchy. There is a lot of perhaps unnecessary roaring at the end though. Finally we come to “One road to Asa Bay”, the other track that vies with the opener for the title of longest, just missing out on the eleven-minute mark. With a jew's harp and the sounds of birdsong and then galloping hooves, it's obviously another epic, which should serve to --- almost --- close the album well.
After about a moment soft guitar comes in with what I guess I should be referring to now as “The Viking Chorus”, then harder guitar pushes it aside and keyboards add to the melody, like a battlesong to accompany warriors as they ride. It's a slow, crunching, marching song, but in a departure from the lyrical themes of the rest of the album, which speak of and glorify the raids and the life of the Norsemen, this song tells of Christian priests and missionaries who came to Scandinavia to enforce their religion upon the Vikings.
”And the bold man carrying cross /Had told all one of Asa bay/ The God of all man woman child had come/ To them all save/ And to thank Lord of Heaven/ One should build to God a house/ And to save one's soul from Hell..”
But even though, after resisting the new religion, the Vikings capitulated and hoped the Christians would go away and leave them in peace, it was obviously never going to be that easy.
”Now this house of a foreign God does stand/ Now must they leave us alone/ Still he heard from somewhere in the woods/ Old crow of wisdom say /...people of Asa land, it's only just begun...”
Indeed.
A tiny, twenty-second instrumental ends the album, but it's so almost inconsequential --- barely a few notes --- that it's hardly even worth mentioning.
TRACKLISTING
1. Shores in flames
2. Valhalla
3. Baptised in fire and ice
4. Father to son
5. Song of hall up high
6. Home of once brave
7. One road to Asa Bay
8. Outro
Is the case for Bathory being the progenitor of Viking Metal strong then? I'd say it's debatable. Although hardly what you would quite term Viking Metal, Manowar were including lyrics about Odin and Asgard as early as 1982, a full eight years before this album saw the light of day, and other bands, notably based in the power or progressive realm, have also dallied with deities in their lyrics. Even Blind Guardian --- whom nobody would call a Viking Metal band --- had songs about the Norse legends before Quorthon got deeply into it.
But what can't be argued is that, as a
bona fide subgenre of metal, Bathory certainly did more than most to bring this collection of stories, legends and musical ideas together into one cohesive whole, and it was this blueprint that the bands who followed would look to for their inspiration. Quorthon pulled all the threads together and wove a pretty impressive tapestry that has lasted long past the death of the man himself. And for that alone, as a legacy of the man known as Quorthon, it's probably fair to place the crown of Viking Metal upon his head. No doubt he now sits in the halls of Valhalla, discussing musical theory with Odin and Thor. He's certainly earned his place.
The album to follow “Hammerheart”, and to expand upon Quorthon's Viking Metal ideas, was “Twilight of the gods”, but I already reviewed that in the first Metal Month, which was actually where I first heard Bathory and was pleasantly surprised. If you want to read it, it's here
http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...ml#post1374102.
A two-year gap would ensue, wherein Bathory returned more towards their original black metal roots, with a flavour of thrash, before returning with another Viking-themed album in 1996.