Månegarm - Vredens Tid

There are times in music where you’re really open for everything. In those times I take a good seat and start to listen to what is presented to me. Månegarm reached that level in me by describing their music as ‘Viking Metal’. A check in their biography tells me I’m certainly not the first one to experience these musicians but it is actually my first time. Behold my trip through new experiences of the incredible possibilities that are hided in a phenomenon called ‘sound’
The reason why I chose to review this record is because I expected some kind of melodic/power/symphonic metal. OK, I have to admit, my only experiences of Vikings take not much further than the adventures of ‘Wicky’ but at least I had an idea.
The cd begins quite well, with horns blowing and announcing that the album has started. The melody is well presented, as I expected and the music is strong. The guitar is not that complex as in previous mentioned genres, the drums are speeded up now and then and the structure of the songs is also ok. The addition of trumpets and other brass instruments are announcing days of battle. In this way, I think the band used their skills well to create an ancient atmosphere, the one of the Vikings.
Other positive things are the fact that the lyrics are both in Swedish and in English as well as the great artwork. In this way, the feeling of being in another civilization is created even more.

Yet, there are a lot of mistakes on this record. For instance a battle. There is one track on this record (Preludium) that contains the sound of a crow followed by sounds of swords crossing each other, fire burning and men yelling and shouting towards each other. I admit that the band in fact tries to give an impression about Vikings but shouldn’t those sounds be placed in a ‘radio play’ or on a website. I for myself don’t mind these kinds of additions.
Another aspect is the vocals. I, again, admit that Vikings are assumed to drink a lot so they’d be drunk often. But the vocals are sometimes just shouting an ugly ‘lalalalalala’ I only expect to appear in football stadiums or drunken students playing karaoke. Putting it on this cd is a shame, because it totally blows away all the good intentions of the band of creating a record that is able to present as a whole, not as separate parts of music. When I hear the vocals vary from grumbling to screaming (the high ones) to whispering and even female vocals I can only get confused. The twists in the music are just present too much.
I also would like to mention the fourth track ‘Kolõga Trolband’. The guitar part is annoying and doesn’t seem to stop. The same part is played over and over again during this 7:14 minute lasting song, alternated by a slow violin tune, high speed until eventually the first guitar part returns. I think this song represents the record very well. The idea is fine, but the crossing parts are bad, just bad.

The thing is, I don’t doubt the musical skills of the band members. The interlude, a very nice and slow acoustic solo with sphere music, and the final song ‘Segervisa’ are strong arguments to see them as creative people. But on the other hand these two songs are also different kinds of music that do not add much to the disk as a whole. In this way, the identity of the band gets lost.

I think for the future Månegarm has to make decisions about which music to create without losing their identity. The thing is, I think that putting in Viking vocals, interludes, woman vocals and ‘radio plays’ could be worked out well, but it’s very hard. It could be possible, but not in this way, despite all the positive effort.