Receive Weekly Email and Text Message Updates:
Sign up for latest info on concerts, dining, promotions and more!
Go!

Related Stories ...

Most Popular

  • Getting Off
    Attorney Tyler Flood says he wins 80 percent of his clients' DWI trials, even if they were 100 percent drunk as a skunk.
  • City of Coffee
    Is Houston about to become America's coffee capital?
  • Looking for a Bull Market
    Killen's Steakhouse in suburban Pearland is probably best during boom times.
  • BBQ Buffet
    Korea Garden Grille offers a stellar selection of barbecue items in unlimited quantities — and new and interesting ways to eat them.
  • Enough About Mi
    Is the authentic little Vietnamese noodle shop Banh Cuon Hoa #2 too adventurous for your tastes?
Most Popular sponsored by

Reader's Picks

Top Recommendations

A short list of Houston's most popular hot spots.
user content provided by: LikeMe.net & Houston Press

National Features >

  • City Pages

    Michele Bachmann, Unmuzzled

    You don't need to read Sarah Palin's book to hear the ravings of a mad woman.

    By Matt Snyders

  • Miami New Times

    Pimp Daddy

    The rise and fall of a chubby sex-cult leader.

    By Natalie O'Neill

  • Riverfront Times

    Babe 'n' Arms

    Tom was a hot-tempered cross-dresser with a garage full of guns--and then he became Rachel.

    By Nicholas Phillips

Amon Amarth

Share

  • rss

By Nicholas L. Hall

Published on April 14, 2009 at 11:40am

As with most genre-blending acts, purveyors of melodic death metal usually lean toward one camp or the other. This tendency has odd results, frequently leaving such bands stranded between scenes, with neither the New Wave of British Heavy Metal revivalists nor the die-hard Death dealers willing to fully embrace them. Of course, this has become increasingly immaterial, with a scene coalescing around the sound's roots in Gothenburg, Sweden, and branching out to encompass much of the frigid north. For those keeping score, though, Amon Amarth owes a bit more fealty to Ozzy Osbourne than to Chuck Schuldiner. With a stripped-down approach to songcraft and arrangement, the five Swedes manage a focused assault without being punishing — it's about as lovely as Viking war songs and cookie-monster vocals can be. The band's most direct connection to death metal is, well, most of its songs are about death and violence. Even there, though, Amarth serves as a side-step from genre fixation; as Pitchfork reviewer Cosmo Lee said last year, "Even its songs about death are stirring — think Valhalla, not hell."