From a Splendourus Battle

I remember that the reason why I wanted to buy Odhinn's debut EP "From a Splendourus Battle" was because it featured some members of another Swedish band In Battle. Which was a band I quite liked, so I hoped Odhinn will be equally interesting. But they weren't, at least not on this EP. There are four tracks here, with twenty minutes of music and all I can say is that it's hardly listenable and very quickly forgettable piece of harsh black metal. If I call it mediocre, that would be a pretty kind compliment for this EP.

It is said that Odhinn plays viking metal, but if you expect medieval melodies, acoustics, epic themes and sing-along warrior like chants from them, then forget it. "From a Splendourus Battle" is much more about fast and nasty black metal. And as such, it wouldn't be a bad idea if these songs were good, their execution was solid and the production was good enough to catch your attention. But no, the music sounds messy and chaotic, almost like the guys couldn't handle the ideas they came up with. Especially the drummer is sometimes losing rhythm and idea what should he play. The vocals are also just boring, harsh screams, maybe quite alike to Enslaved's Grutle, but without even a smallest piece of his talent and creativity. And the production? It's flat, raw and makes everything sound even more horrible. The drums sound crap, the guitars are thin and hardly audible from the wall of noise it all delivers... Definitely the whole music and the production sound amateurish, primitive and to be honest, there's almost no single minute of worthy and solid music. If there are some better "fragments", then you don't care for them, because the whole EP sounds rubbish. I don't even know why I still have it in my collection. Probably because no one would buy this CD from me anyway. I never had a chance to hear Odhinn's album "The North Brigade", but I will believe if you say that it's equally bad as this EP is.

PS. And the mistake in the word “splendorous” in the title? Come on, can it be even more amateurish?
Verdict: 30/100

Upon reading the band name Odhinn, another possible spelling of ‘Odin’, and ‘Viking metal’ as the provided genre classification one would instantly assume that there isn’t much musically and conceptually worthwhile to be found here. Bathory-worship or folk-ish keyboard-laden melodic death, there seems to be an awful lot of bands of the aforementioned sub-genre with little to no inspiration of how they could distinguish themselves from other bands playing a similar style. Of course in 1998, when this EP was released, there were considerably less bands incorporating themes based on Norse mythology in their music and/or lyrics than nowadays around, but purchasing ‘From A Splendourus Battle’ for €1.50 from some mail-order bargain ‘bin’ was a no-brainer anyway.

‘Haunting Winds Over My Grave’ starts off quite confusing. The first thing that stands out is the chaotic drum work with lots of blast beats and an obnoxious cymbal sound. After several seconds the riffs come out more clearly. The sharp, lively black metal riffing puts up a good fight against the drums, but at times those are a bit too loud in the mix for my liking. There’re plenty of subtle melodies, not particularly folk-influenced, but they put the image of a furiously combating Swedish Viking army in your head. The aggressive shrieks definitely contribute to that feeling and fit well.

The title track sounds almost the same at first, but suddenly there’s a slow and mourning riff accompanied by steady double bass drumming and Helheim’s debut ‘Jormundgand’ comes to my mind. I’m speaking of the epic sensation despite the lack of anything evidently ‘epic’ and the vocals, which come quite close to the extreme, lung-collapsing approach that Helheim were known for. It changes from fast to mid-tempo and the other way round a few times, but from now on the Viking metal tag seems pretty reasonable. For a short time some symphonic synths surface, not doing any harm, but the band fortunately realised that more of those could have destroyed everything and only used them a second time in a very similar manner.

Clocking in at three minutes and forty-one seconds ‘Pleasure of Blasphemy’ is the shortest and fastest song. On the one hand there’re restless blast beats, but suddenly there’s a nifty break followed by some inventive drum work and a cheerful melody which could be directly taken from Einherjer’s ‘Dragons of the North’. Then guitars switch to clean and there’re a few moments to breathe where the bass makes its whistle stop, but the neck-breaking drums return, this time accompanied by furious and jumpy guitar melodies.

Each of the first three tracks are decent to good, they all have at least one or two ideas I really like, but, while it doesn’t offer anything new, the fourth song called ‘Before Eternal Eyes’ combines all redeeming qualities to one very enjoyable song. The drums go from high-speeds, to chaotic, energetic and unexpectedly changing stuff, some probably would call this ‘avant-garde’, I suppose, to rather laid-back drumming still featuring many fills and an extensive cymbal work. The latter loses his awful sound over time. The guitarist’s repertoire consists of fast, traditional black metal riffing and more or less subtle ‘epic’, or some might say ‘atmospheric’, melodies. The vocals are basic shrieking, sometimes deeper, sometimes extremely high-pitched yells, but they never feel inept. The almost lack of bass and keyboards doesn’t bother, on the contrary, they don’t feel needed at all.

I guess you can still get this EP from here and there, if you spot it for a good price, I’d say go ahead. Unfortunately it looks like as if their full-length debut couldn’t live up to its predecessor, but don’t let that keep you from checking ‘From A Splendourus Battle’ out.

Standout: Before Eternal Eyes