Blut und Gold

Hailing from the beautiful region of Neunkirchen/Austria are those four Nordic warriors. Anyone being familiar with Skyrim might recognize the band’s name, which in the game is a famous mead hall and headquarter of “The Companions”, located in the city of Whiterun. Being a fan of The Elder Scrolls Series the lyrical theme of the songs for sure is a bonus, but I am glad to report that the music is also of high quality and very enjoyable.

So that being said – how does the music found on this album sound like? The main ingredients for the band’s full length debut “Blut und Gold” have been mainly taken from the traditional Gothenburg school. Melodic riffs are fused with a hard-hitting death metal core, pulling from various prominent peers of this style. Clocking in just a bit over the half-hour mark, this album in contrast to a lot of recent (melodic) death metal records wears its trimmed heft with a lot of grace.

The album’s six tracks (plus intro plus “outro”) are all substantial, seeing good ideas through to completion without wasting space with needless atmosphere or mindless noodling. It’s a direct yet appropriately complex collection of tracks that, for once in the subgenre in 2019, is also infinitely digestible. The band showcasing their fast maturing songwriting skills with variety and propulsion.

Domenik’s vocals rasp and gurgle in that familiar style made popular in modern death metal, while the guitars and drums attack the melo-death template with a slightly progressive bent akin to early Atheist, shedding just enough proggy light on the proceedings to keep things interesting throughout. However, most of the time Jorrvaskr tend to stay on the more aggressive, traditional death metal side, piling riffs on riffs at a frequency that should satisfy most fans of the genre. Some blackish tremolo runs (like e.g. in “Weisheit”) are implemented to give the album additional depth.

The production is quite modern, yet punchy and very transparent. Some might call it too synthetic, but I think the sound fits the music pretty nicely. Coming with atmospheric artwork “Blut und Gold” is a very nice album from this talented Austrian band. Excuse me now, as I have to dust off the Skyrim disc.