Månegarm
Vargstenen

Anyone with even a limited view of the Viking genre should take the time to listen to this magnificent band.

Yes, because beyond the mass of productions and albums tied to what initially was a sub-genre of Black, Månegarm have managed to add an exceptional amount of sentiment and attachment to their land, and its folklore. Among the first to incorporate in their songs, which at the beginning of their career were feral and savage like never before, not melodic inserts, but entire parts that shone with their own light, reflecting the band's extreme creative vein, always balancing between pounding and deafening "bayonet assault" and epic atmospheres, those of "great heroes." Those that, in the end, brought success to Finntroll, Enslaved, Borknagar, etc.

Their latest album, therefore, can rightfully be positioned as their "summa" opus. Highlighting the most colossal and majestic aspects of their unmistakable sound.
Tracks that differ from one another. Always intricate, always with that refined and melancholic touch that resurfaces and are unparalleled blows, but often and willingly surrender within the body of the same song to a thousand streams, a thousand facets, a thousand paths that narrate of blood, sea, fog, snow, and warriors. Nothing new under the sky, for heaven's sake. But even what is already known here is delivered at the best imaginable. And it's no joke.

Without disparaging what has been done by other similar bands (though it's a bold claim: Månegarm are Månegarm and nothing else), they know perfectly well where to point to extract the impossible from the miasma of a genre that is not yet saturated, sure, but is still destined in its future to gobble up hordes of clones.
No one who loves epicness and musical rides could remain still while listening to a song like "Minnen-En Fallen Fader", which alone sweeps away 70% of the bands that consider themselves related to these things: screams to crusher guitars with many points of contact with a badass Thrash Metal, and then, another round, a raw and shouted voice, a schizophrenic violin that dances and struggles in the melodic structure, an epic choir that gives chills, the cadenced and evil progression of the reprise, the melancholy of the second female voice, and again, at the end, razor-sharp guitars that run and get chased without taking a breath. But it's not just one song that rates an album, and rightly so!

All the chapters of this album (which seems to be a concept, and as per the best tradition, is entirely sung in Swedish), would deserve a long separate commentary, but here it would be useless and superfluous, simply because it would be wasted effort to describe its meanings and merits. Suffice it to say that the sensations evoked by this album are manifold, ranging from melancholic and fascinating ("Den Gamle Talar"), to the epic with Gothic undertones ("Visioner På Isen"), moving to the fierce ("Genom Världar Nio", "Nio Dagar, Nio Nätter", "Vargstenen"), and from the folkloristic ("Eld", "Vargbrodern Talar"), to the apotheosis of originality with "Vedergällningens Tid", a track that encapsulates all the distinctive features of "Swedish Viking Metal", and should be an example for anyone claiming to understand anything about it and trying to reproduce this very thing on a score.

So no jokes. There is no trick and no deception. Unless other talented and busy bands provide us with materials to challenge this work (I am referring, for example, to Moonsorrow), I candidly nominate this album as the best of the year, with all due respect to those released in this semester, and even those future ones to come.

Not recommended. Absolutely a must-have. And may Thor strike you if you fail to purchase it.