Artist: Helheim
Title: Asgards Fall
Type: EP
Label: Dark Essence

I picked up the album ‘Journeys and the Experiences of Death’ a few years ago, and has sadly spent too much time on the shelf. That’s the problem when you’re reviewing albums, the ones you purchase often get neglected during busy periods and it’s a shame when you realise you’ve let a great band slip by right before your very nose. Hell, I was NOT expecting this! The Asgards Fall EP is more than a mere promotional ploy to drum up interest for the forthcoming album – the main attraction of course is the two exclusive tracks + interlude and totalling up to around 24 minutes (give or take a few seconds, my maths is shit and it’s 2 in the morning!) it’s certainly worth your money alone. The release also includes a track from the forthcoming album, and a re-recording of ‘Jernskogen’ (originally from Blod & Ild).

So enough statistics (yawn) and on to the music. ‘Asgards Fall pt.1’ brings us in with a warm, inviting guitar and subsequently bursts into a mighty Kampfarian swagger that contrasts with a bitingly cold edge. There’s certainly an epic tale being spun out over the duration of these two songs; the horn that plays out on the chorus part is incredibly dramatic and gives a sense of foreboding. Every move on here seems purposeful and grand in scope, there’s a mighty swagger to this and a heathen flavour to the “ooooh” chants. This is battle metal for grown ups, and you can forget your cheesy OTT battle songs; if the party is full of plastic sword-wielding boozehounds, then this would be the theoretical thirty-something in a tailored suit taking his beautiful wife to the opera, it is just that darned sophisticated in comparison. I’m reminded quite a lot of Moonsorrow and at times Enslaved.

The interlude comes in so unassumedly you don’t even realise, joining the two main epic pieces together beautifully and there’s a bit of Floydian psychadelia at work here with some lovely mellow guitar work that really can’t be faulted. ‘Asgards Fall Pt. 2’ bursts in with an epic, yet sorrowful riff and the “Ahh-ahh” gang chants again bring that Paganic vibe to the table. There’s tons of feeling behind this, which is really constant throughout. It is a wonderfully constructed, flawless composition and despite its length it never loses its way. We brave the elements through the rain and wind through the meandering sermon into a mournful and reflective finale which feels a bit Anathamaic and rounds off the main two tracks before ‘Helheim Pt. VII’ takes us boinging, boinging, boinging through to the rather ferocious sounds of ‘Dualitet Og Ulver’; it crashes and skips and rollicks along at just the right pace and makes me want to pound my fist! Yes it’s a new track (ooh!) and if this is anything to go by then it’s one to seriously await with baited breath for Feb 2011. Excellent stuff!

http://www.myspace.com/helheimnorway