Warthur
Nordland II offers up the second crop of songs from the same sessions which yielded Nordland I. For my money, I like this one just a bit better. Both albums are in Bathory's epic viking metal style, but whereas Nordland I seemed to put a bit of a Hollywood soundtrack spin on it to give it a bit more of a widespread appeal, this album feels like it has more aesthetic callbacks to Bathory material past.
Quorthon didn't know he would die before producing another Bathory album, but if you asked him to craft a final album to conclude his career, I suspect it wouldn't be that much different from Nordland II. As an album with one foot in the cutting edge of his final viking metal sound and one foot in earlier iterations of that sound, it's as good an aesthetic retrospective as you could hope for. (Flights of valkyries speed thee to Valhalla, Quorthon!) At the same time, it doesn't quite feel as groundbreaking or as essential as Bathory's early Viking metal material.