Songs of Battle

Hin Onde has a very archaic guitar sound with excellent Viking riffing. The intro guitar riff of “Burning the Lake Alue” is a great example of their rustic epic music. Overall this is a great album, definitely up there with some of the best Viking metal bands; I explicitly mean Viking metal though, because aside from the black metal vocals, this band has no elements of death, black, thrash, etc., it is purely Viking. Hin Onde uses synthesizers for a lot of their melodies, and the tone works very well with the guitar and subtle drumming. The drumming is very constructive around the guitar and synth riffs, enhancing the energy of the music. They have one song “Language of the Woods,” which is a little bizarre; it’s a synth playing a cool tune while the vocals sing in a dark Viking voice (sounding like it’s off in the distant). It’s a cool song and shows the lighthearted ingenuity of the band.

Hin Onde is one of those bands who create mood in their music; songs like “Songs of Battle,” “Burning the Lake Alue,” “24th of September 1155,” and “Paganheart” have a more sanguine “march out to war” feel, while songs like “House of Hel,” and “Soulswan” are more melancholic, and they also have darker aspects to them like in “Through Sinister Landscapes.”

I have to say that NRQ is the epitome of Viking guitar. No where in the album can I say the guitar sounds like any other modern metal band. I’m not going to touch on the vocals that much, just that they vary back and forth from clean vocals to not too aggressive black vocals, and both styles fit well with the tone of the music.

This is a very good album, I just think it could have been a lot better. Songs of Battle has plenty of interesting and catchy synth, some killer riffs, and cool pagan themes in the lyrics. My first gripe is with the vocals. The
growl vocals try to cound menacing, but don't really succeed, and the singer's clean voice sounds downright cheesy at times, but I guess the clean vocals sound pretty cool on occasion, like in the chorus of the track Burning the Lake Alue. The drums, however, are very simple and not all that exciting.
But overall I think the positives outweight the negatives. Very often, the keyboards create an intense epic atmosphere, like in the tracks The Rune-Singer´s Path and Fimbulwinter. The guitar work is very solid, there is obviously good talent here. Look out for Hin Onde to improve in the future.