Brothers Of Metal – Fimbulvinter
There’s an old saying that goes “absence makes the heart grow fonder,” and while that’s usually applicable when it comes to people, I think it also makes sense for music. Sometimes I won’t listen to a band for a long time, most often one that I’m a huge fan of, and I won’t listen to them again until they have a new album coming out. That’s how it is with most things I’m into these days, but I go back to a lot of stuff here and there. I might love a band or artist, but I can also kind of get sick of them after a while as well, so I take a break from listening to certain things. I’ll take a break for a long time, whether it’s months or even years in some cases, but I’ll come back around to them eventually and realize why I was a big fan in the first place. One band that I haven’t listened to in a long time that I realized that I still quite enjoy is Swedish power metal band Brothers Of Metal. I first found them back in 2017 when they dropped their debut album, Prophecy Of Ragnarok. These guys have a very unique sound that takes power metal, folk metal, and traditional heavy metal (with a splash of death metal, but only in terms of a few growls and harsh vocals here and there), and their lyrics are all about Norse mythology. That’s not a new idea in itself, as a lot of bands in heavy metal have talked about Norse mythology, but their whole shtick is that they talk about Norse mythology, as well as events, characters, and stories within the canon and lore of the mythology itself.
Their debut was all themed around Ragnarok, which is the Norse version of the apocalypse, and it was a great power metal with some of the best vocals in the genre that I’ve heard in years. The album was a masterclass in heavy metal having fun, which is something that metal has had a hard time doing over the last decade or so. A lot of bands want to be serious, trve kvlt, and show how cool they are, but where’s the fun that a lot of 80s bands had? One reason I love 80s and 90s hair-metal bands, for example, is for how fun it is. It’s stupid, dumb, and cheesy fun. Some of them aren’t very good, but that goes for all types of music. When the genre works, it’s a lot of fun, but there can also be great performances that go along with cheesiness and the fun. This band is kind of the same for me, but I’ll admit that I wasn’t super into 2022’s Emblas Saga. The record was fine, but I wasn’t as into it as I was Prophecy Of Ragnarok. I kind of forgot about them until they released Fimbulvinter last winter. Kind of a fitting time to release that album, as the album’s title and its overall theme is the harsh winter that comes before Ragnarok. Fimbulvinter is a lot of fun, and it’s a record that made me realize how much I really like this band, but I do have some qualms with it that prevent me from saying it’s a masterpiece or anything. I’ll get to that here in a second, but this record is more of the same epic, fun, catchy, and well-written power metal, folk metal, and traditional heavy metal hybrid that this band employs with their Norse lyricism and themes in their lyrics.
Their last album didn’t stick with me that much, kind of because it felt like a retread of their debut album, just not quite as good, whereas this is something different. This album employs some new sounds, namely hard-rock and country-rock. “Heavy Metal Vikings,” in particular, is a song that has a 1970s country-rock / southern-rock sound, which is weird, because they’re Swedish and they’re talking about Norse mythology, but I kind of love it. This song is so stupid, dumb, and huge, I can’t help but love it. It’s also very catchy, but a lot of stuff here is really catchy and fun. The band also goes more intro straightforward folk music, especially with “Rivers Of Gold” that has a slower and more ballad-ish sound, but the album still goes into their typical lanes that is surprisingly fresh and still fun. I’m not saying it’s anything essential that you need to hear, but their sound is still relatively unique, because they take a few styles of metal and combine that with lyrical themes of Norse mythology. At the end of the day, though, this album is best for people that love Norse mythology, love power metal, or they love traditional heavy metal / hard-rock. They employ more of a straightforward sound on a lot of songs here, which I really like, because they have a more accessible sound. Not to say their sound isn’t already accessible, because it’s very accessible, but even more so than beforehand.
The only problem I have with this album is one that plagues a lot of albums – it’s way too damn long. At 57 minutes long, this thing overstays its welcome by just a little bit. It starts off quite strong, but the album comes to plateau after about the halfway point, and while it doesn’t totally fall off, a few songs feel like filler. The album comes back by the end, and I enjoy the last handful of tracks, but the middle of this album drags slightly. I’ve been listening to it during the last week or so, and it’s pretty fun, but because the album drags in the middle and it feels a bit too long, its lasting value goes slightly down. To be fair, their other two albums are long, and power metal in general is a genre that doesn’t really understand that less is more. I like short albums, especially these days, but this album is pushing it. As good as it is, and as much as I still enjoy it at the end of the day, it’s a bit too long for its own good. I’d still recommend this, but this isn’t an album that I would say I’m upset that I missed last year. If anything, it might have been an honorable mention, but it’s an album that has a bit too much fat on the bone. Some albums benefit from that, but other albums can be a bit too much, and this album falls into the latter, despite still being catchy, fun, and enjoyable overall. This album made me realize how cool this band is again, despite not enjoying their last album that much, but this album brings in some new ideas, versus treading the same ground that they’ve already done.
