Amon Amarth – Surtur Rising

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Metal Blade Records
Produced by Jens Bogren

It’s been Amon Amarth’s guiding principle for years now that if it ain’t broke, one shouldn’t feel compelled to fix it. That attitude has led to a number of well-received and, all told, pretty awesome releases. 2006′s With Oden On Our Side is one of the three or four best melodic death metal albums of all time, in fact, and everything else the band has done since its 1998 debut Once Sent From The Golden Hall hasn’t fallen far behind.

That is, until now.

Surtur Rising sees Amon Amarth making good on a promise to make the songs, to paraphrase every interview they’ve done in the last two years, more complex and less immediate. They weren’t wrong; the album certainly does fit that description. But for Amon Amarth, doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose?

Their past work was great because it stormed into your room and bludgeoned you with a mace as soon as you pressed play. Some of that spirit remains on new songs like Slaves of Fear and War of The Gods, but even as they maintain the immediacy of the older material, they lack its strength. Perhaps there’s just only so many 4/4 riffs one can sing about Vikings over, but those songs that recall the band’s glorious past aren’t even that strong.

The album highlight is undoubtedly Töck’s Taunt – Loke’s Treachery Part II, and what a dynamite song it is. Unfortunately for Amon Amarth, its greatness is mostly derived from the fact that it relies on revisiting musical themes from Hermod’s Ride To Hel – Loke’s Treachery Part I from With Oden On Our Side. If that doesn’t hint to these Swedes that they need to recapture some magic, I’m not sure what will.

The album completely falls apart by its end despite its relatively brief running time. The Last Stand of Frej and A Beast Am I are borderline embarrassing experiments gone wrong. On 2008′s Twilight of The Thunder God, the penultimate track featured a quartet of cellos and the closing song ran over six minutes, ambling its way to an epic conclusion. Here, on what was supposed to be the new, fresh Amon Amarth record, the experimentation is all based on structure and time signature, and it all feels forced, and worse yet, unskilled.

Surtur Rising doesn’t spell the end of Amon Amarth. They’re too consistent a band to think that just yet. But if the next album isn’t something of a return to form, it will become far too easy to lose interest in them altogether.

“ completely falls apart by its end ”

Tracklist: War of The Gods / Töck’s Taunt – Loke’s Treachery Part II / Destroyer of The Universe / Slaves of Fear / Live Without Regrets / The Last Stand of Frej / For Victory Or Death / Wrath of The Norsemen / A Beast Am I / Doom Over Dead Man

Written by Brad Sanders
More: 2011, Albums, Death Metal, Amon Amarth