Since there is nothing around these parts for this.

Amon Amarth
Twilight Of The Thunder God

If you have not heard these guys, or listened to this CD you need to go, right now, and do so.

Their not bad. Dude at work loves them.

Wrong. Saying they are "not bad" is powerfully insulting. They have guitarists that should be considered legends.

Nah im sticking with "not bad"

quote:

Originally posted by -GhOst-:
They have guitarists that should be considered legends.

True that. But their lyrics make me wish I didn't know English at all. Then nothing would distract me from music.

Ahh, I think their lyrics and singer are extraordinary. There are not many singers who can have such a guttural roar while still remaining 95% understandable. Lamb of God, hard to understand. Amon Amarth, not at all! The content of their lyrics is interesting, all their songs tell viking war stories!

Though part of what I do not understand from them is the Nordic they use. ><

quote:

Originally posted by -GhOst-:
Ahh, I think their lyrics and singer are extraordinary. There are not many singers who can have such a guttural roar while still remaining 95% understandable.

Voice is fine, it's the lyrics that are a problem.

quote:

Though part of what I do not understand from them is the Nordic they use. ><

I can understand them, I just wish I didn't. That quazi-Viking stuff lowers Amon Amarth to what an average pagan metal group would write. Meh.

I don't know how they can be lowered to something else when Amon Amarth is who defined the idea of "Viking Metal."

I love the fact that they are all in on it. They do not "have a song or two" about vikings like a lot of Nordic pagan metal. They write songs exclusively about vikings.

quote:

Originally posted by -GhOst-:
I don't know how they can be lowered to something else when Amon Amarth is who defined the idea of "Viking Metal."

They didn't, there were Enslaved and Bathory before them. Amon Amarth even went as far as voicing reluctance about being associated with viking metal.

quote:

I love the fact that they are all in on it. They do not "have a song or two" about vikings like a lot of Nordic pagan metal. They write songs exclusively about vikings.

Yeah, yeah, "we don't quite know what it is about, but it is so cool that we are going to sing about it anyway." Common pagan metal approach. No, really, I would like them much more if they would stick to their native language. Then it would be just voice and music, no silly distractions like "Judgement day is closing in but still I cannot feel" There is no judgement day in Norse mythology of any kind. None what.so.ever. And their lyrics are full of this semi-crap.

My mistake. I shall have to look into Bathroy!

And your mistake is in the context.

"Judgement day is closing in but still I cannot feel"

Is not by any means in reference to some Nordic myth of any judgment. Because you are right, there is none, there is simply an end of the world and the death of many gods!

The song that line is from is about a man who was captured and is being taken before Christians who will judge him and try to convert him. He refuses and is sentenced to die. He accepts his death eagerly and is taken to the golden hall for his strength.

Anything else?

quote:

Originally posted by -GhOst-:
And your mistake is in the context.

"Judgement day is closing in but still I cannot feel"

Is not by any means in reference to some Nordic myth of any judgment. Because you are right, there is none, there is simply an end of the world and the death of many gods!

The song that line is from is about a man who was captured and is being taken before Christians who will judge him and try to convert him. He refuses and is sentenced to die. He accepts his death eagerly and is taken to the golden hall for his strength.

Oh GhOst, GhOst... Myth for an old-days pagan was a foundation of life, it was more valuable than life itself. Everything that a pagan said, thought, felt, or did was tied to mythology so tightly that mythology couldn't be separated from any of it.

The song is supposedly coming from a viking, ok? There is no concept of a judgement day in a viking mind, the end would be worded in terms of Ragnarok where judgement fits at like a polar bear at the desert. It was only after the conversion that Norsemen started to use Christian terms, but they still assigned their own pagan meaning to them. So if later on a Norseman said "judgement day" he very well may meant "Ragnarok" where no one would be saved. But if it is still time of bringing Pagans in front of Christians in the song, the land has not been converted yet.

More so, since that hopeful viking is not granted a chance to go down fighting (historical records say he is not, and even Amon Amarth got this part right), he will not have a heavenly afterlife either. He would go to Hell or Niflhel - hardly something to look forward to. And even those who earned themselves access to Norse heaven would never get to the Golden Hall. Never-ever. Golden Hall is strictly for the family of Sindri and no one else. In general, any wealthy estate or that of a powerful man could be called a "golden hall" as a figure of speech, but that, again, has nothing to do with death or afterlife.

FYI, Norsemen and other pagans would not necessarily refuse to convert if the final choice was theirs. Specifically, warriors quite often had nothing against accepting foreign Gods in addition to their own for the sake of additional protection. Being practical people, they also saw no harm in multiple conversions into Christianity if missionaries offered new converts gifts (cloths mostly). None of that meant discarding or disrespecting their original Gods.

quote:

Anything else?

Nope. I don't enjoy picking apart what I would rather never heard in the first place.

Music is still great, as is the voice.

Why are you calling the house of Sindri the golden hall? I do not believe it is ever referred to as the Golden Hall (as a matter of fact, neither is Valhalla.) The house is said to be made of gold, but so is Valhalla. As is Glitnir. I have never before heard, from the religious, historic, or literature folk that the Golden Hall reference is anything but the hall of the dead.

Also I do not think it is expressly said anywhere that you must die in combat to gain entrance to Valhalla. Kings and powerful men gained entrance even if they died if sickness. Normally dying of sickness would be a trip to Hel (I believe).

Entrance to Valhalla was determined on the personal pick of Odin himself. Two concepts: This viking was a leader of men. Or Odin had a interest in bringing him to Valhalla.

I don't think Odin would like you very much if you accepted the idea of an all powerful christian god. I know if I was Odin I would be disappointed in my people. Thus Odin smiled upon this viking and thus he was let into Valhalla, also known as the hall of the slain, otherwise referred to as the hall layered in gold and shining with gold.

quote:

Originally posted by -GhOst-:
Why are you calling the house of Sindri the golden hall? I do not believe it is ever referred to as the Golden Hall (as a matter of fact, neither is Valhalla.) The house is said to be made of gold, but so is Valhalla. As is Glitnir.

Not me. Voluspa saga does. Valhalla is not a Golden Hall. It is only thatched with golden shields, that's all. There are still walls that are not golden. Read sources, i.e. sagas, not interpretations.

quote:

I have never before heard, from the religious, historic, or literature folk that the Golden Hall reference is anything but the hall of the dead.

Of the slain, Einherjar, - of those who died in a battle and were brought to Valhalla by valkyries. Anyone can die, not anyone would get to Valhalla after that.

quote:

Also I do not think it is expressly said anywhere that you must die in combat to gain entrance to Valhalla. Kings and powerful men gained entrance even if they died if sickness. Normally dying of sickness would be a trip to Hel (I believe).

Read the Eddas, both Poetic and Prosaic one, and the knowledge will be with you. Baldr, a God and a highly skilled warrior, didn't die in a battle, he was archly slained by Loki, and guess where did he go? That's right, to Hell. Only due to serious negotiations between Gods he was allowed to come back in the new cycle of creation. Normally those who got into Hel would never come back, not in this cycle, not in next ones. The death for them was permanent. But Baldr would miss Ragnarok with this arrangement all the same. Think Odin would not want him by his side? He was practically invincible, that Baldr.

quote:

Entrance to Valhalla was determined on the personal pick of Odin himself. Two concepts: This viking was a leader of men. Or Odin had a interest in bringing him to Valhalla.

Leader who died of sickness or old age would not get to Valhalla. BTW, Amon Amarth addressed that very tragedy in one of their songs. Old and sick would carry these qualities into the afterlife and would be useless in an epic battle of Ragnarok.

quote:

I don't think Odin would like you very much if you accepted the idea of an all powerful christian god. I know if I was Odin I would be disappointed in my people. Thus Odin smiled upon this viking and thus he was let into Valhalla, also known as the hall of the slain, otherwise referred to as the hall layered in gold and shining with gold.

This is because your thinking lies within a Christian mindset where there has to be one true God and you can't accept any other Gods without becoming a traitor. This exclusivity did not exist before the Old Testament and everything that stemmed from it. Like Buddhism does not require you to abandon whatever you believed before, old Paganism didn't particularly care whom else you worshiped as long as you paid all proper dues to your original Gods. Now, if you would drop your own Gods in favor of someone else's, THAT would be a problem, and consequences would vary from an exile to immediate death. In any case you would not stay with your people because you would become a threat to their well-being.