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Amon Amarth - The Crusher
Amon Amarth - The Crusher
Metal Blade - 2001
By Rodrigo
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I was highly looking forward from the new release by Amon Amarth The Crusher because their last release The Avenger was a pleasant death metal surprise that I still play frequently. However, after listening to it many times I have come to the conclusion that so far this album is one of the biggest disappointments of the year.
I really tried very hard to like this album. I wanted to like it but no matter how many times I listened to it, I got more and more disappointed with it because I know that Amon Amarth is capable of so much more. Once again the main music writing duties has been undertaken by Olavi Mikkonen and instead of showing the creativity that was present in The Avenger Olavi is mired in rehashing old riffs and as a result the music ends up sounding mediocre. Maybe it is time for some of the other band members to take a stab at the songwriting duties. Just to sell the point even more, one of the songs I enjoyed the most is "Risen from the Sea (2000)". The original is found in the Thor’s Arise demo, so this song is already an older tune but it is sounds more creative and it is better than most of the rest of the "newer" songs. The other songs that I really enjoy are the surprisingly catchy "A Fury Divine" (I really enjoy how the lyrics flow), the melodic "As Long as the Raven Flies" and the powerful and crushing "The Sound of Eight Hooves". Funny enough, all these 4 songs are all conveniently together.
So while the music song writing isn’t that great, the same can’t be said about they lyrics written by Johan Hegg. Once again Johan delves into Viking stories and criticism towards Christianity. They are very well written and at times poetic. It is almost as if you are getting a history lesson on this culture and Johan is the teacher.
One last thing I would like to mention is that The Crusher was produced at Abyss Studios. However, the production job is kind of poor compared to other Abyss-produced CD’s that have come out recently. The first time that I heard the album I was in my car and I got really scared because I kept hearing a screeching noise in the background (similar to the sounds of bad car brakes). Well lucky for me it wasn’t the car making the noise but it’s too bad for Amon Amarth because it is very present in the mix in some songs and it is very annoying. The other complaint is that the drums don’t really sound very powerful and a question I kept making is why are the leads and solos not more prominent in the mix? It kind of sucks that this occurs throughout the album.
So as you might have guessed already, I am not very impressed with The Crusher. I am extremely disappointed and a little angry because this band is capable of coming out with killer efforts and not something as mediocre as The Crusher.
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