Melodic death metal with Viking elements is not exactly my favorite style, but I decided to give the album a go anyway. Typical cover to begin with: dark colors, forest and, of course, a warrior in proper armor and shield. Amon Amarth is the first thing that comes to my mind. The band logo is a bit unusual, I would say it’s more suited to a black-pagan band instead, but music is more important than a logo. And it starts quite promising. Hard, still melodic riffs. Songs are good, with varied sound. One can sing along immediately. Definitely not typical death metal – I can distinguish each instrument sound, playing style itself is not typical for the genre. I would say heavy metal with solid vocal. Indeed, vocals pleasantly surprised me with no grunting and squeaking, just being heavy. I thought there must be something wrong, until track#6, when everything came to where it’s supposed to be. Extreme grunting and blast beats. Despite this, the music remained nice and varied. It even came to a nice break with the eponymous song and its slow and lyric melancholy.
The band will definitely appeal to Amon Amarth fans (that’s why it struck me in the beginning), even I would consider listening to Ice Throne. As I already said, this is not my style and probably many will recognize other sounds and declare it a typical standard album. I found it a good catch.

7.5/10