The Great Heathen Army

Amon Amarth seem like nice guys, which is the best I can say about them. I’ve missed a bunch of their recent albums, but I don’t think this is a case where I really have to get a lot of context for it. All their stuff sounds the same. Like a lot of metal bands, they’re reliable for putting out exactly what you’d expect every so often.

These songs all stick to a totally safe midtempo, sluggish and unable to really get the blood pumping in the way you’d want this kind of music to. The riffs on the first song get a nice churning stomp going, certainly fit for festivals where a light beer is $13 and you’re crammed up against everyone’s sweaty armpits. But then they do the same thing on all the other songs and it’s just not a compelling enough sound to keep you invested. It feels like they’re purposefully holding themselves back from actually rocking out. The melody serves to dilute the sound. While there are some pleasant rolling harmonies going on, none of it sticks or lingers in the mind. None of these riffs really hit hard past that first song being alright. The rhythms are clunky and the guitar sound is perfectly in the middle, warm and a bit crunchy but nothing overly abrasive, essentially just background music.

Johan Hegg has never impressed me as a singer. Maybe if he sounded really pissed off it’d be different and work a little better, but mostly it’s just noisy for no reason, a simplistic grunting bark even when the music is melodic enough to maybe be a little interesting. The vocals staying at the same stunted croak the whole time just keeps everything so static and lifeless. A clean singer would work just fine for the vast majority of melodeath bands I’ve ever heard - the harsh singing with these bands always just seems like they couldn’t find a good enough actual singer. The duet on this album with British legends Saxon only points out the stark contrast - Biff Byford’s lightning-bolt shrieking adds a minor shot in the arm for what otherwise is a pretty dull trudge by that point in the album. Great clean vocals can really add shade and color to the music. Whole new dimensions.

Ultimately this is just a Product™ made for consumption, right off a conveyor belt. Nothing challenging, everything right on the surface, and everything with the distinct feel of promotion. “Come see us play live” isn’t really a compelling musical vision. This album is just the musical equivalent to a promotional beer coozie or an action figure. Lyrics are utterly plain recitations of the same ‘battle is cool’ shit we’ve heard forever, the same old odes to vikings and war and shit that you can get anywhere. Why the reverence for the times of vikings and all that? It was a smelly, rancid, dull time and the threat of getting randomly murdered or dying young of some preventable disease was a lot higher. Sounds like a bad time to spend so much time focusing on. But on the other hand, the climate hadn’t been ruined yet, so, touche on that aspect of this revisionism and romanticizing the past.

Not like I expected them to start philosophizing at me, but “Odin Owns You All,” “Get in the Ring,” is this shit really compelling to anyone over the age of 13? It’s all just meaningless. This is what art is to people? Filler stuff - hollow words in the name of “fun,” but honestly, this album is only 40 minutes long and feels twice that length. The lyrics end up reflecting the music - the band just sounds bored, and I’m bored reading and listening to them here.