Unleashed | ‘As Yggdrasil Trembles’

With a huge, ominous and pounding drumbeat, opening track ‘Courage Today, Victory Tomorrow’ launches into a snarling, no-messing-about trio of songs which make up the loose Norse mythological concept binding the album.

It’s vintage Unleashed - heavy as hell with a strong choral hook and music that fits the mood of the song easily. ‘So It Begins’, the middle part of the trilogy, is dedicated to those who adapt and beat challenges in life, with the unprepared facing death.

‘As Yggdrasil Trembles’, the final part of the opening concept, is a paean to the hammer battalions that the previous album was dedicated to, and is a dead cert to be a set staple from now on.

There’s some subtle vocal work going on here that is quite hard to distinguish when listening to the vinyl, but upon listening to this on headphones, you can hear a great thundering vocal effect added to the word “trembles” in the chorus that makes it seem as if the world tree is indeed shaking; resulting in a subconscious feeling of massive force.

It’s a great start to an album that pushes Unleashed further towards mainstream acceptance, but perhaps not in the bludgeoning high quality way the previous two albums had been pushing for.

Throughout the album, one feels a slight ironic touch that a lot of the album sounds exactly like any Amon Amarth album. It’s no bad thing to be honest, but the similarity is hard to get past, especially considering AA’s meteoric rise in popularity and Unleashed’s constant dwelling as kings of the underground.

The comparisons continue with ‘Wir Kapitulieren Niemals’ (We Will Never Surrender), which is a song of praise for the German metalheads for the standard unswerving loyalty and love of metal etc, but is most interesting for Unleashed’s use of the phrase “Viking death metal” – a term they seem to be claiming back from the Turisas-loving, Wacken-attending, kilt-clad, beer-sacrificing-to-Odin buffoons, and not before time. Unleashed have been using such mythology from the start, and it’s great to see them reclaiming lyrical themes that have been bastardised over time by trend following bands.

Unleashed, along with Amon Amarth, have been called the Manowar of death metal, and it’s hard to argue with the comparison – songs like ‘This Time We Fight’ with its lyrics of hammers been held to the sky, is pure Manowar style.

‘Master Of The Ancient Art’ is one of the absolute highlights on an album which has several of them, but this one is lyrically one of the best in the band’s 20 year history. It reveals all the gods of history to be nothing more than a scapegoat for mankind’s own evil deeds, controlling life and death by relegating them to a higher power they themselves invented.

There’s a lot of religion bashing going on here, but it’s done in such a plain way that it exposes the sheer ridiculousness of the precepts on offer. Quoting Necrophagia lyrics to create a sickening version of the Catholic rite of holy communion (‘Cannibalistic Epidemic Continues’) is a masterstroke of metallic satire. The band simply describe religious rites in plain language that a priest would use (and words used by rabbis in ‘Yahweh And The Chosen Ones’, but with the setting used, the sheer illogical oppressive horror of it is shown, a side that is ignored by the vassals.

Musically, ‘Chief Einherjar’ is the most satisfying by having a series of killer riffs that match absolutely perfectly to the lyrics, with an extraordinarily basic drumbeat that keeps almost the exact same beat throughout, speeding up once or twice, but adding significantly to the anticipative sense of pre-battle preparation.

Unleashed have gotten steadily better and better with their past few albums, and it’s hugely interesting to see the new directions they’ve been choosing for each new one. “Midvinterblot” was a sinister, insidiously evil album, “Hammer Battalion” was a shocking dose of aggression and hatred, while “As Yggdrasil Trembles” is a proclamation of battle against all who dare stand in their way. And it’s bloody effective at that.

So to put it simply, it’s not as sinister or aggressive as the previous two, but it’s far better songwise and more satisfying musically and lyrically. As it is, it’s on an almost equal par with “Hammer Battalion”, and had there been an iota more aggression, it would have surpassed it easily. This is Viking death metal in the purest sense; not an ale horn in sight.

4.5 / 5 - Dónal McBrien ::: 27/04/10