Galar – Til Alle Heimsens Endar (2010) Review 8.9/10

Galar is a two man act from Norway. They are classified as “viking metal” but they bring a lot more to the table than that. They mix a in little black metal and even a little neo-classical. Til Alle Heimsens Endar is their second release. It has a bigger sound than Skogskvad (their first release) and is a bit more melodic as well.

The thing that I really like about this music is the variety of instruments they use and the way one section flows to the next. Marius Kristiansen takes care of the vocals, guitars, and bass guitars while Are B. Lauritzen does the clean vocals, piano, keyboard, and bassoon (they use a session drummer in the studio).  There are also some female vocals on some of the tracks as well.

They are smart enough not to mix the bassoon into the heavier parts of the music. Instead we have songs that transition from the blast beats and Windir style melodic guitar lines into more classical moments. On paper this might not sound like it would work. It seems like two different styles just slapped together, one beginning where the other stopped but Galar’s music transitions beautifully from one to the other. The voice of the songs remains the same even though all the instruments have changed.

They have more finesse now and this is surely a more beautiful piece of work than Skogskvad. However, I feel that there was a bit more raw energy on Skogskvad and in ten years I will remember it more than Til Alle Heimsens Endar. It’s not a bad album at all, it’s just that Skogskvad is one of my favorite albums of all time and therefore very hard to top.

8.9/10

2010 – Best of the New Year (So Far)

2010 is getting off to one hell of a start. January was pure insanity. Here are the ones to look for (IMO):

Ihsahn – After

Mother of God. This album is amazing. Vegard Sverre Tveitan keeps getting better. Now he is on an eight string guitar and the music is just madness.

Ihsahn is Read more

THUNDRA – Ignored By Fear (2009) Review 9.1/10

Well, where to begin…

Thundra, if you’ve never heard of them before, they are a mix of a few genres possibly, Most predominantly Black metal with great viking metal influence, and at times even a little death metal thrown in. The way they manage to mix all of this and make it sound like all of them but not like any of them is the amazing part about this band.
As for this new CD, “Ignored by Fear”, they don’t change much from their previous sound or style (This is actually a good thing, they are right where they want to be.).
Now for those who have listened before I will give a quick little thought of their sound, This album sounds a little more aggressive than their previous albums, and have a big step up in the production values, but still holds true to everything you know and love about them. As for new listeners, this is probably the first CD I would recommend picking up from these guys.
Unlike most of the other great Thundra albums, this one starts out generally slow and gaining gradually, instead of their normal way of being heavy from the start to the middle then slowing down for a fast end. Personally I think with their sound in particular this is a good thing. The new things they’ve incorporated in this CD is a few parts that resemble old death metal, and parts that have more melodic, even more epic parts that make you want to close your eyes and daydream you are a viking. There is even parts that make you want to start playing air guitar and rock out while listening.
I would say out of the other Thundra albums, this is probably the pinnacle of their career thusfar, and that I hope they keep heading in this direction, Rune himself really did a great job this time around with the guitar work, it is a great mix of atmosphere mixing with Nils’ great synthing and Haralds varied drum playing. Stevens clean vocals this time around sound a lot smoother while still retaining the same sound and his shrieks and growls have only gotten better.

I would say the standout tracks in this album are “Inner Struggle”, the album opener, and “Storm Within”, the second track and arguably one of the bands most aggressive sounding songs to date.
Overall I would give this album a 9.1/10 and say that it is a very good release in the right derection that I hope the band stays on.

Keep it Metal User Manual

Here is how this place works (I am tired so this is gonna be messy).

Most of the site is controlled through he black bar across the top. You can register, edit your profile, and compose blogs here. Be sure to fill our your profile, upload an avatar, and click around a bit.

If you want to write a blog, review, article, etc. there are rules.

• If it’s not about metal it doesn’t go on the main page. You can discuss it in the forum.
• Use tags!
• Users are not allowed to use the “Keep it Metal” categories (“Official News/ Blog” and Official Review”). Those categories are not for the community.
• Use any other categories that apply.
• If you want your article to show on the main page be sure to select the “Community” category.

Comments and blogs are synced to the forum. If you like the forum better you can just live there.

Rules:

• No trolling. This is not gameriot. I will ban. If you want to be funny, play the pic war.
• No porn, no illegal stuff (links to torrents, etc.)
• If you don’t have anything to say, don’t. We don’t needs posts that say, “stfu,” and nothing else.
• No alternate accounts.
• No threats.
• Sig may be 800px x 120px, no larger.
• Keep It Metal

If you want your avatar to show up in the forum you have to actually go into the forum and edit your profile. You will need to copy the image location from your avatar on the wordpress site and paste it into your profile on the forum. It’s kinda stupid and we will fix this soon.

If you want to create a wiki article you need to write a normal blog article and then scroll all the way to the bottom of the page. You will see options to turn your post into a wiki page. If your post is a wiki page the h2 tags will be headers in the table of contents and the h3 will be sub-headers.

Now… let me know if there are bugs.

Windir

Windir Photos

Genre(s)

Black Metal, Melodic Black Metal, Viking Metal, Folk Metal

Members

• Terje “Valfar” Bakken – Vocals, Accordion (Formerly also Guitar, Bass, Keyboards, up to “Arntor”) (R.I.P. January 14, 2004)
• Jørn “Steingrim” Holen – Drums (1994-2004) (Vreid, Cor Scorpii, Ulcus)
• Stian “Strom” Bakketeig – Guitar (2001-2004) (Cor Scorpii, Ulcus, Mistur)
• Sture Dingsøyr – Guitar (also Vocals on “SognaMetal”) (2001-2004) (Vreid, Ulcus, Finnugor)
• Jarle “Hvà ll” KvÃ¥le – Bass (2001-2004) (Vreid, Ulcus)
• Gaute “Righ” Refsnes – Keyboards (2001-2004) (Cor Scorpii, Ulcus)

Lyrical Theme(s)

History, Vikings, War, Misanthropy, Myths

Samples (Videos)