Amon Amarth | ‘Twilight Of The Thunder God’

Amon Amarth’s rise and rise to being the biggest Death Metal band on the planet seems both unavoidable and irresistible. Don’t doubt it will happen. The backlash coming from certain quarters is altogether predictable. You may scoff at their Manowar like take on mythology and the Viking bling their fans proudly wear but they march on regardless. Quorthon who?

The fact remains though that Amon’s ascendancy is based on one peerless Heavy Metal virtue - headbangability. No one gets a field of Germans windmilling like AA, absolutely no one. They took the template Unleashed drove into the ground after two albums and ran with it and broke out of the death metal holding pen into the heavy metal arena. The comparisons however to Manowar are striking, both inspire a talismanic devotion in their fans and they give them exactly what they want, critics be damned.

That said is ‘Twilight’ any use ? To be honest this could be the new Motorhead album, given that it does exactly what it says on the tin and little more. There are no stand out ‘hits’ for MTV2 and it does take a while to get out of the blocks. ‘Guardians of Asgard’ for example is particularily throwaway. Halfway though it starts to shine and takes a darker turn. Amon reach beyond the cartoon imagery and channel into something mightier, majestic at times perhaps even sinister and dare I say even melancholy.

The final salvo of ‘The Hero’ and ‘Live for the Kill’ which features Apocalyptica finally doing something worthwhile in the world of metal brings the atmosphere to an unexpected high which is perfectly capped off with album closer ‘Embrace The Endless Ocean’ all highlighting a songwriting maturity and possibly even introspection without eschewing the Amon trademarks that their fans love them for - and that their detractors grudgingly tap their foot to. Worthy.

3.6 / 5 - Alan Averill ::: 26/09/08