Amon Amarth - Berserker

I have always respected Amon Amarth for their consistent dedication to serving their niche within metal and appreciated that dedication to making something no one else on or near their reputable level is making. Granted, I’m sure their reliability and refusal to part ways with their sound even momentarily have been part of what has kept potential challengers for their place at bay or from even bothering to enter their territory to begin with.

Even though their releases have grown only more and more predictable as they stack atop one another, I’m still glad Amon Amarth are doing their thing because, again, there’s not really anyone else out there ready to pick up their torch if they set it down. That being said, Amon Amarth definitely don’t just get all the necessary points just for showing up, and their last few albums have certainly felt creatively fatigued, which is natural for a band that has kept to one style and one central lyrical theme throughout their career.

But just because a draining of inspiration into and exclusive style of artistic output is a natural phenomenon, that doesn’t exempt them from at least trying to live up to their full potential with each release. And on one hand, the band’s ardent adherence to their musical marriage vows (while admirable) is frustrating in itself for the band simply saying “no” to other foods without even tasting them, but on the other hand, their style is so rooted in tenacity and fighting spirit that their ability to carry on with it does require them to indeed bring out genuinely passionate performances in order to remain worthy of their own sound. So they’re kind of in a weird middle ground between artistic ambition and stagnation; they have been for several years now, and Berserker is about as representative of this fact as 2016’s Jomsviking was. And what this means is that Berserker is another take-it-or-leave-it album depending on how much Amon Amarth’s style resonates with one at the core.

For me, I do find quite a bit of enjoyment at a fundamental level in the type of empowered melodic death metal that Amon Amarth play, certainly more than the essence of what their peers like In Flames and Arch Enemy are doing these days, but I also feel like I’ve had enough of the same from Amon Amarth at this point. And I don’t mean that I’m fed up with them; they’re certainly doing their job and not bastardizing, diluting, or inauthenticating their sound. I just mean that they already have eleven full-length albums to their name now, and the past few have shown the comedown from the peak of the band’s ability with this style. I think just finding some way to shake it up, even just a little bit, to set this album apart from its past two or three predecessors.

And this is not to say this album is uniformly stale or phoned in; highlight moments like the dynamic, choral-supported “Ironside”, the battle-ready “Shield Wall” and the familiar, yet invigorating headbanger “Crack the Sky” stand toe to toe with the band’s best songs. But songs like “Fafner’s Gold”, “When Once Again We Can Set Our Sails”, and several other moments on the album sound simply like reruns of older songs.

Berserker really doesn’t prompt much to be said about it beyond its being a serviceable addition to the wall of the band’s unbreachable catalog. It certainly stands its ground, but when the craving for Amon Amarth’s inspiring brand of melodeath I don’t see myself picking it ahead of With Oden on Our Side, Twighlight of the Thunder God, Fate of Norns, or even Surtur Rising. That being said, I feel I should back up and clarify that this criticism stems from my own lofty expectations for this band based on the bar they’ve set for themselves. I do still quite like this album and I want to emphasize that I think it’s just a bit of a repetitive exercise for Amon Amarth in particular, which says a lot about how much I respect the discography they’ve amassed and continue to expand, and I would be remissed if I didn’t express my gratitude to the band for another fine serving of what only they can cook up.

Great Oden’s raven/10