siLLy puPPy ASGUARD started out as Ancient Castle in 1996 and formed by Alexander Afonchenko and Tselobenok in the far eastern city of Mogilev, Belarus. Almost immediately changing their named to ASGUARD, a slight play on the mythical city of Asgard, they released a few demos in the late 90s and were all ready to finally unleash this debut BLACK FIRELAND in 2001 but a major disagreement with the Ukrainian label Bloodheart Prod led to the band looking elsewhere and finally after looking westward signed on to the California label Devil Doll Records for three albums. BLACK FIRELAND finally saw the light of day in 2003 and in some ways paid off because the controversy generated some interest in the industry and the album got some press in Revolver, Terriorizer and Kerrang. In Russia though the band found refuge on the More Hate label before the Devil Doll label picked them up.

As insinuated by the moniker, ASGUARD looked north towards the Scandinavian nations for inspiration and they found plenty in Sweden’s melo-death scene which around the early 2000s was in full swing with bands like Edge of Sanity, Dark Tranquility and Amon Amarth showed no sign of losing steam after the Gothenburg scene took the world by storm in the 1990s. BLACK FIRELAND has actually seen two major releases, the first in 2003 on the More Hate label with the red and orange cover art and then in 2004 when This Dark Reign Recordings, a sub-label of Devil Doll Records re-released all of the early albums (and EPs) with slightly different cover art. This album featured the same orange and red cover art only squashed down into a rectangle and framed by black.

Feisty and passionately on fire, ASGUARD’s debut finds the band on high-octane with a rampaging mix of melodic death metal and classic 70s heavy metal in the vein of Judas Priest or Iron Maiden. The band deftly mixes the most energetic guitar riffage of death metal with slightly slower style of melodic classic 80s metal. The vocal style of Alexander Afonchenko remains firmly on guttural growls and overall the band sounds most like Amon Amarth to my ears but by no means a clone. The band showcases a tight compositional fortitude that keeps the chord changes interesting and an incessant bombast that makes this a wild and energetic ride. The addition of keyboards gives it a slight Children of Bodom flavor however this band doesn’t go all the way in fusing the world of power metal other than in its intensity.

Firing on all cylinders for the majority of the album’s run, the fifth track “Bloody Hate.. (And Souls Of Dead Dreams)” offers a slowed down intro that hums along on classic heavy metal mode with some slower arpeggiated moments. There are really only five albums songs on this as the sixth is a demo of the track “War” (not repeated but rather added) and a final Manowar cover “Metal Warriors.” The band does its best to deathen up these final two tracks that are traditionally not found in the death metal camp. “War” came from the debut EP “In The Darkness of the Night” which was as much neoclassical metal as melo-death and of course Manowar’s classic track came from the 1992 album “The Triumph of Steel” which mixed classic heavy metal with the more energetic US power metal style.

It seems a lot of melo-death flew under the radar with Sweden hogging the world’s attention but ASGUARD was a good as any of the more famous acts. This band could dish out the death metal and the melodic aspects seamlessly without sacrificing one iota of the aggressive tour de force power riffing and percussive delivery that death metal demands. Even the keyboards don’t sound cheesy which was my concern as they tastefully accent the melodic constructs without sacrificing the sheer brutality. While ASGUARD would never let you guess that they emerged from a former Soviet republic, they nevertheless did a more than outstanding job in emulating the Swedish melo-death scene by equaling the quality of musical deliveries. At least i love this one a lot.