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Midvinterblot is
the 8th full-length studio release from Swedish death metallers
Unleashed and the first on SPV. The band continues their assault on the
world with their unrelenting ferocity and intense tunes of bygone heathen
days when the Viking hoards ruled the Northern seas.
The album isn’t
your typical death metal album. Sure this album has the aggression
typical of the genre, but it also has substance and variation on the death
metal theme, with some soaring guitar riffs and some pretty intense kick
drum action, as well as some bone crushing bass lines.
The album opens
up with ‘Blood And Lies’ and from the off the mind set of the band is laid
down for all to gasp in awe at the intensity and majesty of this release.
The intensity
grows from track to track as the album continues with ‘This Is Our World
Now’ and ‘We Must Join With Him’, before the onslaught of the title track
‘Midvinterblot’. A heavy bass ridden track that warrants the
listener to raise the horns in salute of Odin with lines like "...
Death Metal No Compromise".
‘In Victory Or
Defeat’ is a track that will appeal to the die-hard death metal fans with
its pace and grandiose guitar riffs. The same can be said about ‘The
Avenger’, another song than pays homage to the mighty Odin, God of war.
The album never
breaks from its intense power and ferocity as tracks like ‘Salvation of
Mankind’ and ‘Psycho Killer’ are unleashed with the pulse driven bass
tones on ‘The Witch’ and the speed fest that is ‘I Have Sworn Allegiance’,
this album has it all in bucket-fulls.
The album forges
the point that Unleashed reign high in the anecdotes of time as one of the
finest death metal bands around.
I’ve had my
share of death metal releases sent over the past year and this has to be
one of the most accessible I’ve heard. |
