Skálmöld & Sinfóníuhljómsveit Íslands

Short version; Overall, this is a sum of their first two albums, polished and played with a great orchestra. If you enjoyed those, you will definitely enjoy this. And if you're new to this band, this a fantastic place to start.

I found Skálmöld always interesting within their own genre. Their mix of several different vocals, smart use of keyboard with amazing riffs are always entertaining, and even though I cannot understand a word of Icelandic you can feel a deep narrative behind every song. This is why I was looking forward to this release for a long time, and listened to it over and over again before writing anything about it.

This is a mix of their first and second album, both great on their own, played live with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. I must say I am normally not a fan of mixing Metal with other genres, to me most of the time it ends up being gimmicky and gets boring quite fast (There are of course exceptions). Fortunately this time it's not the case. From the beginning of the concert you can feel that they really wanted to do this as epic as they could and as good as they could. The amazing vocals from the chorus mix into the song Heima from their first album, and set up the mood. Then the roller coaster starts with Árás, and doesn't stop till the end.

If you're familiar from the first two albums you can see that they picked a very good selection from them. While all the songs are played very well my noted favourites are Loki, Fenrisúlfur, Hel (with an amazing vocal performance by guest star Edda Tegeder) and my personal favourite Baldur as the closing song. If you have no prior experience of Skálmöld I think Baldur as a song would be a good one to start as it combines slow and fast parts with extremely well sung lyrics from different vocals, and the memorable Heima within it.

One more thing to note is that the DVD and the CD that comes out of the package are slightly different. The DVD has some extra bits, couple more songs and the fantastic intro with Heima. I would definitely recommend watching the concert video at least once. It's great to see this band live as they look extremely happy while playing, and the Orchestra looks quite fun (especially the Chef who's definitely enjoying the experience). It's lovely to see them as giddy as they are! They're a very charismatic and energetic band to watch, and it reflects well on the audience.