Versus the World

What a tremendous album.... That's all that I kept saying to myself within the brief seconds it took me to take my headphones off my head. This album is definitely the best melodic death metal album ever produced. Viking themes, melody riffs, stupendous leads, good fast drumming, and great Viking theme lyrics screeched out by the blonde Viking of a vocalist, Johan Hegg.

The CD starts off with a bang (Death in fire) and ends in a melodic epic "...And soon the world will cease to be." "Death in fire", kicks your ass right from the beginning with a war drum beat and a terrific melodic guitar riff. The songs on the album vary from fast brutal war like songs, to melodic songs, which even though are slow in pace still keep the overall aggression of Amon Amarth at full strength, such as tracks like, Down the Slopes of Death and Across the Rainbow Bridge.

Drum wise, Fredrik Andersson keeps good pace with average double bass and in my own opinion, does not show as much talent on this CD as I think he could. The guitar players, Olavi Mikkonen and Johan Goderberg, keep the tempo up with very melodic riffage. Just check out the opening riff on "For the stabwounds in our back" to see what I mean. The Bass playing like in most death metal is barley even noticed. The thing that most impressed me about Amon Amarth was Johan Hegg, his screechy Viking yell impressed me very much, and his guttural death metal growl added variety to the mix.

This album had two noticeably terrific epic songs, "...And soon the world will cease to be" and "Thousand years of oppression". Both of which are terrific, but the slow build up and spoken word intro to "Thousand years of oppression" makes that song more enjoyable. With great guitar leads and lyrics it is by far the best soon on the CD.

Well all in all, Amon Amarth brings to the table possibly the greatest Melodic Death album ever. Great leads, vocals and lyrics. Best tracks: Thousand Years of Oppression, Death in Fire, For the Stabwounds in our Backs, and (the triumphant war march song) Versus the World.