Review of Himinbjorg - Golden Age

Alrighty then... getting back on track after all that (relaxing and lazy) downtime, here comes the new Himinbjorg album. For those who are completely without knowledge of this band, I can see why. Himinbjorg is/was a French Black/Viking metal band, formerly signed to American "Red Stream Records", but now signed to the much closer to home Adipocere Records (and also sporting possibly the worst layout of the year on this disc.) Himinbjorg is actually the name of the castle that Heimdall (a norse god) supposedly lived... and it floated in the damn sky. All that nonsense aside, Himinbjorg's first two albums, Where Raven's Fly (1998) and In The Raven's Shadow (1999) were both a pretty mediocre and standard affair, not coming close to say... Windir. Now come 2001 they released an EP called Third which pointed to a new direction that was fully explored on their 2002 release, Haunted Shores. Alright, honestly? I thought Haunted Shores was... eh, mediocre at best mostly, it was a french Black Metal band trying to be all Neurosis-like and Doom/Gothic, I know a good amount of people that thought it was good, but I couldn't even listen to the damn thing and enjoy it. And that would put us in the now, with 2003's Golden Age, and guess what, all those people who loved Haunted Shores for being what it was, will probably not expect to hear what's on this disc. Golden Age, quite simply is a Pagan Black/Death album more along the lines of their older stuff that their last longplayer. There is no atmospheric intro, no mercy, no fancy shit, this starts out with all guns blazing with "The Opening", with a title like that I was expecting some nature sounds or something... ah well. The production is pretty damn good, besides some oddness coming from the general direction of the drums, everything is pretty much in place... Good distorted guitar sound?, check. Harsh vocals? check. Clean "pagan" vocals? check. Fast enough drumming? yeah pretty much. Near complete absense of bass? check. Now, as far as I can tell- although there is SOME keyboard playing, its damn near non-existant compared to the guitars, most atmosphere is provided by the axes, which is respectable, it's good to see a band that doesn't need to bring in the fuckin' orchestra just to get some atmosphere in their damn music. One minor complaint, at some points the drums sound like me giving hell to a piece of plywood with a steeltoe work boot... then again its near buried under the riff onslaught, blast beats and vocals. Overall this isn't winning any awards for best of the year, but in my opinion its Himinbjorg's best work yet, they have really matured as musicians since the "Ravens" albums, that's for damn sure, definitely recommended to any fan of Black/Death or the older Viking Metal style like Hammerheart-era Bathory, old Unleashed or Enslaved etc... why not... this is seven tracks of pretty damn good material, track 4, a self-titled song called (you guessed it) HIMINBJORG, is oddly just over a minute of nice and atmospheric water dripping sounds in a cavern I guess with some acoustic guitar in the background... leading up to a more melodic 5th track, What was..., Himinbjorg will not swamp you in melody - actually the sound of the album can get a bit monotonous, nothing off the wall or amazing, nothing really new at all, pretty Black Metal styled in general. I think by now everyone has gotten the jist of what's on the platter here, even fans of older Naglfar, Dissection or Old Man's Child may want to look into this. Not bad for a bunch of frenchies... god, if this keeps up, France might actually become a respected metal country!

Release Details

Himinbjorg

Golden Age

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