thePULSEVikings Breach Foreign Shores
By Jillian Locke
The night of May 7th at the Paradise Rock Club in Boston was truly monumental for a few key reasons: it marked Amon Amarth’s first performance in Boston, the venue was not only sold out, but also crammed from wall to wall with fans who can only be compared to those of Iron Maiden, or Kiss, and ~ lastly ~ there were no opening bands. Amon Amarth opened for themselves AND played a headlining set. Ummm, do I have to say it? .EPIC!
“We had some ideas for opening acts, but unfortunately, they didn’t work out, so we figured we’d try this idea and make it happen,” vocalist Johan Hegg told me just before they embarked on their North American tour, after revealing that their first choice, Primordial, couldn’t make it. “It’s something that had crossed our minds before but we never really went ahead with it. It’s a good challenge for us!”
Concluding the tour in Boston, the burley syndicate has been spreading the intensity and aggression of their latest release, Surtur Rising, to anxious crowds across the country. The crowd at the Paradise repeatedly raised their fists, chanting, “Hey! Hey! Hey!” during and after each and every battle hymn that Amon Amarth belted out in their abrasive, unrelenting delivery. Hegg is quite likely the cheeriest, giddiest, most formidable 21st century Viking in existence ~ it were as if Boston was Valhalla, and he had come home; he delighted at conversing with the crowd, provoking their chants, and talking up Boston sports…he was like a Viking reveling in the victory feast after battle!
They played their new album, which is being heralded as possibly their most assailing, barbaric effort yet, exuding more variation and diversity than what fans have come to expect from a typical AA installment. Perhaps the heightened feel came from the subject matter: Surtur, the oldest mythological figure and the leader of the Fire Giants of Muspelheim. “We had an idea about the character Surtur on the previous album, but for different reasons, that never really came to be. When we were talking about how it should be and started writing, we had an idea we wanted to have a more aggressive sound, and then the idea of the Surtur came up again. Then I came up with the idea for the art work and then we kind of started from that angle for a change. The idea that we had to have a more aggressive sound kind of spilled over into the song writing process as well. Some songs are very aggressive; there’s a good variation of songs and a really good diversity within the album,” Hegg explains.
The first set included the gamut of bombastic tracks off Surtur Rising, including “War of the Gods,” “Tock’s Taunt ~ Loke’s Treachery Part II,” “Destroyer of the Universe,” “Slaves of Fear,” “Live Without Regrets,” “The Last Stand of Frej,” “For Victory or Death,” “Wrath of the Norsemen,” “A Beast Am I” and “Doom Over Dead Man.” After a 15 minute break, the second set commenced, packed with AA staples like “Twilight of the Thunder Gods,” “Live for the Kill,” “With Oden On Our Side,” and the song that Hegg announced as Amon Amarth’s ‘best party song,’ “Guardians of Asgaard.”
Amon Amarth’s first night of Viking-inspired debauchery and metallic celebration in Boston was one for the books, and an experience that is sure to bring the Swedish warriors and their devoted fans back to Massachusetts soon!
