In Europe, heavy metal is looked upon as another way to connect to the past. There are tons of bands whose focus is paying tribute to the pagan cultures of old Europe, particularly the Vikings. The most well known of these Viking or pagan metal bands is Amon Amarth, but I would make the claim that Sweden’s Månegarm is musically more interesting and diverse.

Fornaldarsagor (no idea what that actually means) is an extremely heavy album that really has the feeling of an ancient battle march. It’s easy to imagine warriors of old charging into battle with this blaring on the speaker. Most of the tracks start with speed reminiscent of black metal but settle down into something more mid-paced. If you have trouble with foreign lyrics, steer well clear of this, because there’s not a word of English here. But I don’t think English would sound as good as old Swedish here.

It’s a bracing listen that’s thankfully different from a lot of American metal. If you were looking for a good place to start investigating the pagan metal tradition, Fornaldarsagor is it.

This review is available in book (paperback and hardcover) in Music Street Journal: 2019  Volume 3. More information and purchase links can be found at: garyhillauthor.com/Music-Street-Journal-2019.

With a scream and roar of fury, the battle is upon you! This opens with a fiery blast reminiscent of black metal, but there is a melody in the guitars that sounds like folk gone metal. The vocals are raw and gruff until there’s a cool  cleaner singalong chorus that has a very “Viking” sound.  The song has some very brief acoustic bits, but for the most part is a raging battering ram of aggressive metal that blends in the melody of ancient Scandinavia..