Band:	Thrudvangar
Album:	Ahnenthron
Style:	Viking black metal
Release date:	2004
A review by:	Promonex

01. Intro
02. Die Drachen Und der Runenstein
03. Jul
04. Ahnenthron
05. Heilige Flamme
06. Piraten Des Nordens
07. Kampf Des Lebens
08. Thingfrieden
09. Departure In The Night
10. Einherjer
11. Thrudvangar (Instrumental)
+ Video "Piraten des Nordens" [Live at Under The Black Sun Festival 2006] [2006 re-release bonus]

Thrudvangar are a band from Germany's flourishing Viking Metal scene and are regarded by many as successors of the great Menhir. What, you don't know Menhir? Alright, little history lesson: the German Viking and Pagan Metal scene was established some 10 years ago by bands like Menhir, Adorned Brood and Riger, a scene that has spawned an awesome amount of bands with mostly German lyrics, of which Equilibrium was the first to gain huge international success. One of these many bands is Thrudvangar who released their debut album "Ahnenthron" in 2004, which got sold out without a problem and got them a record deal. So what would fit better than re-releasing this album in a re-mastered version in the month which used to be called Julmond (Yule-Moon) in ancient Germany?

Thrudvangar play a style of Viking Metal, which is dominated by great growls, heavy guitars, melodic keyboards and very catchy song-writing. The keyboards play a central role as they are mostly responsible for the melodies and thus also for the great catchiness within each and every of these songs while the guitars add a nice dose of heaviness with their typical Viking Metal riffs, which occasionally burst into raging Black Metal; especially the song "Piraten des Nordens", which is also featured in the multimedia part of this re-release, is a great example of this Black/Viking mixture with the keyboards creating an epic atmosphere. Said keyboards are also a point of criticism though - unlike in their following album "Walhall" (released earlier this year) the keyboards occasionally still sound quite unprofessional production-wise. On one hand this might be regarded as advantage as it greatly adds to the rawness of the whole album, on the other hand it makes some passages quite annoying like the beginning of the opening track "Die Drachen und der Runenstein", which I found myself skipping quite often only due to the first 30 seconds. Disregarding those few passages the keyboards are highly enjoyable though, as this "amateurishness" feels kind of refreshing and simpatico considering the flood of albums with their over-produced keyboards ("Turis Fratyr" comes to mind).

The lyrics are the ones you expect from a typical German Viking Metal release and invite to bang, sing and growl along if you are familiar with the language; if you don't speak any German, there's also an English track on this album ("Departure in the Night"), but don't bother with it, there is probably a reason why Thrudvangar have decided not to write an English song for their follow-up - lyrics like "He is decided to the triumph each fight" speak for themselves...
The vocals on this album are naturally mostly throaty growls, and quite good ones may I say, not dissimilar to the ones of Equilibrium's Helge Stang, but a bit darker and similarly easy to understand - an exception is the aforementioned "Departure in the Night", which fortunately cloaks its bad lyrics behind the singer's bad pronunciation and the narrator speaking in a clear voice isn't much better either. The song "Thingfrieden" features clean vocals as well, which aren't really great, but serve their purpose by enhancing the song's immense catchiness.

Overall one must say that Thrudvangar's greatest strength probably is their ability to write catchy songs that just force you to listen to them over and over again without turning annoying, songs that tend to stick in your head for a very long time, a process strongly catalyzed by the refreshingly "amateurish" sounding keyboards. If you like Viking Metal, if you don't need it to be as epic as Equilibrium and happen to get along with German lyrics, give these guys a try!



Highlights: "Piraten des Nordens", "Thingfrieden", the quasi-ballad "Kampf des Lebens" and the incredibly catchy "Jul"

Downloads (1:30 samples):
Ahnenthron
Heilige Flamme
Piraten des Nordens
Kampf des Lebens