AMON AMARTH — Twilight of the Thunder God (review)

AMON AMARTH — Twilight of the Thunder God album cover Album · 2008 · Melodic Death Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
topofsm
Amon Amarth is like the AC/DC of melodic death metal. Their songs are energetic, anthemic, and result in a chest-pounding good time. They never deviate from the formula and it works.

Twilight of the Thunder God is no different. It's a solid piece of work by Amon Amarth with some great songwriting and some haunting melodies. It's pretty standard sounding for melodic death, but it's well constructed. Although the album tends to lull a few songs in, the rest make up for it.

The opening title track grabs the listener immediately, with energetic quick tempo riffs and well constructed guitar solos. This is probably one of the best tracks on the album, as it hits the ground running with all the energetic speed it needs to. Unfortunately, there are quite a few of the next songs that are more by-the-numbers Amon.

"Guardians of Asgaard" is one of these. It's a basic midtempo song that seems like they just made it to give the album more time. "Varyags Of Miklagaard" seems to be similar, it contains regular riffs similar to the "Pursuit of Vikings" rhythms, only slowed down. "Tattered Banners and Bloody Flags" is also like this, though the opening riffs are creative and well made, the song just suffers from too-familiar song structure.

That being said, the last couple of songs make up for those tracks. "Live for the Kill" contains beautiful haunting melodies at a well-paced tempo, and is most remembered for the quiet bridge section where Apocalyptica plays the song's mournful melody on cellos, a welcome addition to the song. The final track, "Embrace of the Endless Ocean" starts off with a sorrowful riff that builds into a crushing melody when the drums kick in. This final song is sad and well placed, successfully evoking a viking dying at sea.

This album is far from perfect. Like AC/DC, there tend to be plenty of tracks that are standard fare apart from the well known ones they play at concerts. However, the good tracks are great and Amon Amarth has a working formula. This album would be recommended to anyone into some of the lighter forms of metal, and of course all Amon Amarth fans need to have it in their collection.
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