Album Review: Skálmöld - Með Vættum

If I didn't know any better, by listening to enough heavy music, I would swear that the gods of rock and roll are the same ones worshiped by the Vikings. Rarely have there been songs written about the Greek and Roman gods, not that they didn't have some twisted stories that could make for interesting heavy metal, but something about the Norse has made them to go-to deities for metal bands. Skálmöld takes up their heritage, as many others have, with a bombastic style that pays tribute to those gods, while making us all feel a little bit more like an avenging warrior along the way.

In fact, Skálmöld wastes nary a second in that endeavor, with the opener blasting straight out of the speakers in the first second with a throaty roar and overwhelming presence. It's not the first time I've encountered an album that leaps out with the first notes, but it's always a startling way to open a record. The song carries on with a mixture of Amon Amarth's epic swagger, and Running Wild's (how's that for an odd mix?) approach to guitar. The gruff vocal turns what could have been a song that could have gotten away from the band into a hefty statement of their power.

“Með Fuglum” takes the band in a more epic direction, with a lengthy introduction that sounds like an army marching in, ready to kill, and then evolves into a galloping number that is tinged with death metal elements. When the middle section comes in with a straight thrash riff and almost chanted vocal, it sounds like it could be too much thrown into the soup, but something about being over-the-top sounds right for this kind of music. If you're going to go big, you had better be committed to doing it right.

That's perhaps the element of the album that feels disappointing. There aren't enough moments on the record that step out of what you would already expect this to sound like for it to be interesting. When you think of Viking metal, there is a blueprint in place, and Skálmöld doesn't do much to deviate from what everyone else has already established as the standard. The few places where the backing vocals rise up like a chorus of avengers are some of the best moments, because not only do they break up the entropy of the song, but they feel suitably epic. For as big as the subject matter here is, the songs themselves don't scrape the heavens quite enough.

But when taken within the confines of what Viking metal is expected to be, Skálmöld does a convincing job of sounding like the soundtrack for a pillaging spree. They certainly know how to latch on to a groove and use it to their advantage, even if they throw in blast beats and death metal riffs that don't add much to the songs. When they gallop along like a slower, heavier, more demonic version of Iron Maiden, that's when they're at their best. A song like “Með Drekum” is Skálmöld at their best, churning out a massive slab of metallic thunder.

Perhaps my criticism is more pointed than it needs to be, because the lyrics are not in English, and the stories of the gods being told are lost on me. I can only judge by the actual music whether they have captured the mood, without knowing for sure if my judgments are even based on a true assessment of the goals.

All in all, while I would have liked to see a big more in terms of scope from the album, “Með Vaettum” is a pretty good album of epic Viking metal that will surely go a long way towards pleasing the people who want to spin a record and feel like they can conquer the world.