Bathory

Nordland I (The End)
by Martin Popoff

Bloody ‘ell, talk about (m)old school. The elusive and reclusive Quorthon creeps back with a Bathory album of panoramic yet claustrophobic Viking metal that creaks like a chainmailed soldier of doom riding high atop weathered maritime planks. Slogging grimly from plodded track to track, Nordland I is in a class of its own, for who would dare make metal so doddering, belabored, and ill of tone? Fact is, Quorthon owns this patch of land by default, the man defiantly out of touch with modern production and yet determined to mine an odd soundtracky realm, all the while using his plain singing voice, barely a whisper above a grumble and a mumble. Slow, frigid, and dark, Nordland I will either strike you as a laughable mess of artistic mistakes unknowingly cast in bad taste, or the wily, purposefully organic and bog-static rantings of a mind shuttered in his Northern drawing room.
(331 Rio Grande #58 SLC, UT 84101)