Himinbjorg was formed in 1996 in France and they are a band that’s changed their approach to song writing a couple of times now, however, they’ve always maintained a strong Black Metal foundation and their latest release, Golden Age is no different. Much like Primordial and Berserk (from Spain), Himinbjorg play a style of Black Metal focused on melody, atmosphere, and Pagan themes. Though there are definitely a couple of interesting things going on with Himinbjorg the end result falls a little below what I expected.

If someone were to ask me if I would recommend Golden Age, I probably reply by saying, “I hope you like blast beats”. Yes, that’s right, Himinbjorg love their blast beats; they use them in every song, and usually for extended lengths. In some cases it works well as most Black Metal fans would agree that some really good atmospheres can be created by the Black Metal style of riffing over blast beats, and Himinbjorg do succeed in this regard most of the time. There are definitely some well thought out riffs and melodies in songs like Death Of A King and …And To Fight Forever, though, unfortunately, a lot of the time Himinbjorg just get too repetitive for their own good and it ends up killing the atmosphere that was originally created; the best example is on Him, which pounds and drones for way too long at the beginning.

For any Pagan based band the lyrics are usually a highlight and Himinbjorg follow this trend rather well. Written by Zahaah (vocals and bass) and translated, quite nicely it would seem, by Mathrien (guitars), the lyrical topics vary from song to song, but the general topic is of Pagan glory and ideals on life. They’re very well written and make for a good read with almost no occurrences of broken English, which is a nice change of pace. The actual wording of the lyrics is another story, not since Rhapsody’s Fabio Lione have certain English words been pronounced so poorly, though you can’t really blame Zahaah, as it has got to be hard when English isn’t your fist language. Anyway, the main thing that needs to be discussed is the actual execution and sound of the vocals. As expected a Black Metal style mid-range growl is used; and at times Zahaah actually sounds like a Black Metal version of Jeff Walker (Carcass). The style is typical and somewhat unoriginal but it’s well done for what it is, meanwhile clean vocals are also used. It seems to be a given in bands like this that clean vocals will show up and unlike the typical harsh style, the clean vocals are everything but typical. They are actually kind of poorly done as the phrasing isn’t great, but I have to give the band credit for creating clean vocals that sound completely original and unique; they had the right idea at least. However, for some reason when the two styles are used in conjunction on …And To Fight Forever they sound great and I wish this was done more. However, the main problem with the vocals is that the phrasing is inconsistent; sometimes it’s really good and at other times I just had to shake my head. There are some really cool lyrics that a band like say, Amon Amarth, could deliver with an intense force and distinction that Himinbjorg seem to lack. With that being said though the actual tone and sound are above average.

When drummer Kahos isn’t blasting away he is a very competent drummer as his fills are all over the place and very chaotic, and he can definitely drum blast beats fast with various cymbal and snare patterns, though he is a little underused as I can tell he has a lot of untapped talent that perhaps could have been explored more. Thankfully, the guitar playing from Mathrien and Anton is adequately executed, as most of the riffs are quite good as I mentioned. The style rarely varies from the traditional Black Metal riffing, that at times sounds similar to what Enslaved did on Blodhemn, as far as odd melody progression, which in the end works in the bands favour. Problem is, where as Enslaved was chaotic and constantly throwing in change ups, Himinbjorg concentrate more on a constant atmosphere that doesn’t involve a lot of riff changes. Moreover, the production job is nicely done with a nice mix and slightly raw sound to the CD, with a powerful bass drum sound that really gets you head banging when the band uses double bass.

I was expecting a little more from this release based on what I had heard of Himinbjorg. Don’t get me wrong, there are some really good songs on here that are rather powerful and creative and I definitely recommend this to fans of Pagan Black Metal, but there are faults that are hard to overlook, and it’s not so much with what the band did, but what I feel they should have done instead, which in end ends up being more subjective than objective so you should probably listen for yourself first. Quality production, really good lyrics, cool riffs that make for a good atmosphere, and occasionally clever song writing does bring this CD into the 70’s range, but the weak vocal phrasing, repetitiveness in the blasting, and occasional poor song writing decision prevent the CD from reaching the 80’s range.