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Manegarm is a band that can seemingly do no wrong. I have everything they've put out to date, and I love all of it.

They embody the Viking spirit. They draw influences from Mithotyn, Swedish black metal, and most obviously Scandinavian folk (among other things). All their lyrics are in Swedish, which I greatly prefer, and which only makes sense considering the Pagan and Viking lyrics. (Especially Viking, seeing as how Sweden was one of the three Viking nations)

This particular release is more black metal than all of the releases that come after it. So much so that I'd call this Pagan black metal before anything else. The first thing that I love about this album is that it's quite raw, while still being extremely listenable. Violins manage to float peacefully in the violent torrent of raging Pagan black metal. Even over blast beats and black metal wails.

There are a number of very dark, yet somehow distinctly Pagan (recalling foreboding and somber Nordic landscapes) acoustic interludes. Remotely similar to Opeth, though rather than playing it for 6 minutes like Blopeth would, they work that dark, pseudo-progressive sound into folk excellence, and move along nicely into the remainder of the song. Sometimes accompanied by a very folky violin, sometimes ending into more blistering Viking black metal.

Every riff gets the proper amount of attention it needs. They make every riff interesting, either with subtle lead riffs, sheer energy, melodic Viking riffs, or accompaniment of violin, other folk instruments or traditional folky female vocals.

It’s ironic that I mentioned Opeth earlier, because this band is actually on the other end of the spectrum in terms of riffs and song length and structure. Manegarm keeps all their riffs concise, they switch before the riff can even begin to get monotonous, they give every riff proper attention, and they put the song together coherently and well balanced.

Pros: Aggressive, catchy folk/Viking black metal, little to no filler, hook-laden violin and folk-influenced guitar leads, great song writing and execution - what’s not to love?

Cons: Maybe some of the black metal parts sound too similar. But that’s stretching it, I couldn’t really complain about much of anything here.

If you don’t already have this, and you claim to be a fan of anything black metal or any of it’s subgenres, you really missed the clue wagon. Get it!