Really Great Album !!!

For such band whit such name I was expecting more, if it would be new band, or not so big one, I would be Ok and happy, somehow it was more ''adult'' more slower, it was not classic fast forward going bm speed here, just slow. Well Satyricon is not same as well, somehow vocals seems not best. Small acoustic parts here, not bad, well if I can judge, not best swe bm from this year, but band came back.
But then after few spinns I start to like it, because second part of album hmmm reminds me Faanefjäll and abit Galar,

I get that this album won’t set the world on fire, or apparently even satisfy most fans, but I went in with low expectations and ended up absolutely loving it. I really enjoyed De Ödeslösa but didn't think this would live up to that. With an eight year gap, the songs they posted early, and from all the track lengths being really similar I expected Vanagandr to be forgettable at best and that they would be trying to recapture their old sound with few new ideas. I’m glad that wasn’t the case and was quite surprised how well this album works for me personally.

The early posted songs (Döp Dem I Eld, Järnhand, Jordafärd) didn’t really catch my attention as anything very new, and those songs still don’t stand out to me as much when I listen through the album, but I think the biggest strength of Vanagandr is when you put it all together in the exact way it is arranged. All the songs sound and feel vastly different even though they are all similar in length. The songs flow and complement each other so well together that I listened through the whole album twice back to back on my first listen, and I’ve never done that with an album before.

At first I missed Rydén’s vocal style from the previous two albums, but I think he does what is appropriate for how this album sounds and he certainly is still giving it his all. Even though the first and last tracks don’t really grab me like the rest of the album, they aren’t bad songs by any means and everything in between those songs manages to keep my full attention. I can’t remember the last album I got which I had zero real problems with. The only reason why I don’t rate this album a 10 (yet) is because I don’t think I’ve spent enough time with it despite listening through quite a few times already.

All I ever really want from Thyrfing is for them to have a really dynamic vocal performance and a great dark/epic/sometimes folky atmosphere. They certainly delivered that here but I’m impressed just how MUCH of those things they delivered. Thyrfing doesn’t need overly long songs to add a surprising amount of depth and variety to their writing. Every song has something memorable and they all build to heights that I didn’t think the band would be able to reach anymore.

This is a fine album. Went into it with zero expectations because I didn't really heard them before and came out thoroughly entertained with some high quality viking black metal, some well written riffs, good folky passages. I saw in instagram that Night Crowned posted about them in their story, that piqued my curiosity, and damn, am I glad that I paid a listen to them. This was some good metal to listen to.

Good Viking BM. Heard about the band a lot but never went through any of their previous albums. Was almost expecting something similar and they satisfied. As someone said earlier, the whole album has a flow connecting every song to the other. Length is neither too much nor less.

It was hard for me to get into this album and still not sure I did. I like many ideas explored here and the dark atmosphera, also the wider range on vocals, but also have the feeling that something's missing as I can't find many remarkable moments. Maybe I need to be in the right mood and will definetly give it another try, but for now it's just an OK album.