Music / Reviews
Review: Amon Amarth, Thekla
“It’s not exactly a Viking ship,” observes hulking, lavishly bearded Johan Hegg, surveying his surroundings, “but, well, you’ve got to take what you can get.” There’s something strangely appropriate about Amon Amarth playing the Thekla, given that they’ve been known to bring their own longship for festival performances. But when the marauding Swedes were last in Bristol just over a year ago, they comfortably packed the Academy. While it’s great to see them up close for a change, this much smaller gig sold out instantly. And for all its many pleasures, the good ship Thekla is perhaps not the best venue in which to squeeze a gargantuan metal show with a packed, sweaty, furiously moshing throng.
Take an enormous dollop of Norse mythology, add a smidgen of Tolkien and bring to the boil with intricate, precision-driven melodic death metal and you’ve got Amon Amarth. Nine albums in and this five-strong horde show no sign of running out of either steam or material, with the title track of (relative) newie Deceiver of the Gods being greeted like an old favourite. Like Rush’s ‘YYZ’ and Megadeth’s ‘Symphony of Destruction’, Guardians of Asgaard has one of those great riffs that audiences can’t help singing along to. The epic Victorious March takes the tempo down a notch, permitting bedraggled casualties to crawl from the mosh pit.
Chief berserker Hegg, who has a role as – you guessed it! – a scarred, fearsome, sword and axe-wielding Viking warrior in the upcoming movie Northmen – A Viking Saga, is a charismatic and agreeably droll frontman. It comes as a relief to find his full-blooded roar undiminished given that he had to drop out of the previous night’s show after losing his voice, which must be a considerable inconvenience for someone who growls for a living. The encore brings the title track of breakthrough album Twilight of the Thunder God and reliable crowd-pleaser The Pursuit of Vikings. There’s no room in this venue for the usual mass outbreak of rowing – arguably the oddest display of crowd participation in all of metal – during the latter. But with his now-familiar quip, Hegg insists we all sing along: “It doesn’t matter if you don’t know the words. This is death metal. No one will notice!”
is needed now More than ever
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