Valkyrian Music

Månegarm
Legions of The North
Released 28th June2013
Viking Metal/ Black Metal
Released via Napalm Records

‘Legions of The North’ is the new album from the Swedish viking metal band Månegarm. It is the follow up to their 2009 release ‘Nattväsen’.

After short, atmospheric instrumental Arise we head for the battlefields with the title track offering a good balance of guitar riffage and harsh, almost black metal style vocals. The drum patterns owe a lot to the black metal genre as well. If there ever was such a genre as “blackened viking metal”, Månegarm would be its torch-bearer. Take Eternity Awaits for instance, on one side it has these ultra catchy folk metal style guitar melodies and cheesy backing singers and then there are the frostbitten black metal vocals creeping in. Same can be said for the folk chants in Hordes of Hel. It might sound like an unusual mix, but believe me it works.

The march goes on into wintry forests as Tor Hjälpe sheds any traces of the happy folk tunes and replaces them with some grim black metal. I’m not sure what to make of the clear backing vocals though; they don’t seem to really fit the style of that song… Other noteworthy tracks include Sons of War which features some catchy rock guitar melodies and vocals that mimic war cries and Fallen which reminds me of their fellow countrymen Amon Amarth.

Overall this is album proves there is a lot more to Viking metal than fake swords, horned helmets and drinking tunes. It can be dark and powerful as well as melodic and catchy at the same time, which is a rarity these days.

4/5

Iza Raittila

Related articles

• Månegarm – Legions of The North (valkyrianmusic.com)
• Moribund Oblivion – Manevi (valkyrianmusic.com)

This entry was posted on 7th June 2013 at 8:00 pm and is filed under Review with tags Amon Amarth, Black Metal, Folk music, Månegarm, Napalm Records, Viking Metal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.