Asenblut – ‘Die Wilde Jagd’ (AFM)

By Jonny Bakes

There are many cultures throughout history who have fascinating myths, a variety of Gods causing havoc and elite warriors. However, there are few that really grip the imagination of metalheads across the world like the Vikings. Hell, there are bands out there who dedicate their entire catalogue to tales of the Aesir and the Viking warriors who worshipped them. This really doesn’t come as much surprise because, let’s face it, they’re pretty badass.

One such band that finds itself rattling the doors of Valhalla is German melodic death metallers Asenblut who are launching another assault to follow in the wake of 2016’s ‘Berserker’. When listening to them, you could be forgiven for mistaking them for Amon Amarth. I mean, Viking-influenced melodic death metal is a fairly specific niche, and when a band conquers that genre to the degree that Amon Amarth have, it’s very difficult to set yourselves apart from that. But without actually seeing the band, you wouldn’t realise that they seem to have found themselves a Frost Giant from Jotunheim itself with their absolutely monstrous frontman Tetzel. Seriously, this guy is absolutely huge!

Instead of focusing on the similarities between the two bands, I’ll try and focus on the differences. To the untrained ear there really isn’t a huge amount to distinguish the two… Perhaps at times there’s a hint of influence from thrash and black metal that give this album a subtly different edge but it’s like picking the difference between a filleting knife and a boning knife, not many people are going to know the difference! For me, I’m absolutely fine with this as I’m already a pretty big fan of Amon Amarth. So to find something else that’s on a very similar vein, sign me up! But I could also understand if this would cause some people to turn their noses up at it.

It’s got everything you would expect really – melodic guitar riffs, pounding drum rhythms, deep growls and tales of Viking lore. The album is pretty fast paced as each track absolutely gallops through the tales of lore, which are entirely in German i might add. This means that, unfortunately, for those who don’t have a fine grasp of German, you will likely miss out on the finer nuances of the lyrics, but that didn’t detract from the enjoyment for me.

Now usually this is where I would take some time to delve into some particularly stand out tracks, but for this album it’s pretty difficult to single out any tracks that really stand out from the rest. I suppose if I was to really try and pick one of the tracks it would be ‘Weder Gott noch Könige’ (Neither God nor King) which stands out for a particularly Iron Maiden-esque leading riff.

So, overall, there’s really no way to escape the shadow of Amon Amarth here. The similarity is so great that I reckon if I were to a blind test on some unsuspecting metalheads they would struggle to tell the difference! So it will come as no surprise then that I would recommend this for fans of Amon Amarth, but also Asenblut’s fellow countrymen Blind Guardian and possibly even Equilibrium too.

‘Die Wilde Jagd’ is released tomorrow (Friday 29 May). You can get your copy HERE.

https://www.facebook.com/asenblutband/