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.