Vanir
Sagas

Danish band Vanir offers some Sagas on their sixth album that is Viking stories with one of the songs dedicated to fantasy writer JRR Tolkien. So it is about heroes, myths, legends, that sort of uninteresting nonsense, if you care about the lyrical themes. The cover looks great. The album is said to be their best and they are apparently one of the most prominent Viking metal bands in Denmark. So, the question is if this prominent band has put together a prominent album.

Viking metal is the style, as we stated before. Extreme metal with some classic melodic touches and things like the, with lyrics about historic myths and legends. They seem to be going for epic but doesn’t quite get there. The soundscapes would have benefitted from a grander and more dynamic sound, and the vocalist is quite boring – generic is the kindest thing I can think of when describing the voice. The songs are typical of the genre, Vanir offers nothing that feels original or fresh – it is one more album in this genre, simple as that.

They make it long, God knows why. They overstay their welcome with a big margin, I am bored with this album after 30 minutes, and from that it goes on for 30 more minutes. There are just so many better albums in this genre out there. This is grey, bleak, dull, boring, sad, uninteresting, unfortunately it is most things negative and few things positive. The most positive thing I can say about it is that the songs at least aren’t bad, just indifferent.

I find this album to be generic, and a bit boring, it is a shame for such a great artwork. Fans of the Viking metal style might see it differently, but I am not convinced about that. There are so many better choices in the melodic death metal style of music to choose for, Scandinavia has an impressive selection of great bands in that genre. Unfortunately, Sagas doesn’t place Vanir amongst those bands, I recommend looking elsewhere if you are looking for you next great album.

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