Bathory
Nordland I

Hello everyone, I'm new to debaser, so this is my first review, a review that I write with all my heart since the album I'm going to talk about is one that has truly remained in my heart.

2002 saw the release of one of the last albums by the great Bathory, I'm talking about "Nordland", an album with great expressive power, played with heart and written with soul; the good old Quorthon gives us yet another masterpiece of viking metal, entirely played and sung by himself... this could, for some, represent a major limitation since we all sort of know that Quorthon was never a great instrumentalist nor a great singer.

The album opens with "Prelude", an almost instrumental piece with soft background choirs that introduce us to what I consider the true masterpiece of the album: "Nordland", a song of considerable length, a full 9 minutes and 20 seconds, which fortunately pass by excellently: the melodies of this song, but also the rhythm (very measured to tell the truth) will make you fall in love instantly, I assure you! It continues with a couple of songs that perhaps could be defined as the "weak points" of the album, namely "Vinterblot" and "Dragons Breath", which although not mediocre songs (especially considering the poor quality viking available these days), end up being too similar to each other, thus losing some of the pleasure in listening. We then move on to another strong piece of the album: "Ring Of Gold", an entirely acoustic song that presents us with a Quorthon in great shape and emphasizes the theatricality of the vocals, with a very good guitar part that relaxes the listener's limbs. We return to a heavy pounding with "Foreverdark Woods", a piece with a strong auditory impact that heavily utilizes the speed of the drumming section in order to make the listening experience varied and, from a certain point of view, fun! The seventh track of the album, "Broken Sword", develops in a very similar manner to "Foreverdark Woods" although this time the result is even better thanks to the over a minute-long acoustic intro. The double bass drum patterns this time seem a bit repetitive, but maybe you won't even notice it given the overall beauty of the song. To close this beautiful album we have "Great Hall Awaits A Fallen Brother" and "Mother Earth Father Thunder" which, thanks to their beautiful riffs and, once again, almost cheerful well-constructed but above all particular atmospheres, will make us remember (or at least I hope so) this album forever.