Our record of the year, it’s very ironic how a little label like Displeased Records managed to beat the big names in metal like Nuclear Blast and Century Media; well they did and they did good, off course all the work was done by Manegarm but the label believed in them, and so they deserve some of the credit as well.

Viking metal, to us Latin Americans this is a very seductive genre I don’t know why? Maybe is the fact that the music is based on the history and heritage of their composers and someday we will really like to do something like that, write metal about the Incas, Mayas, Aztecs, Chorotegas.

Vredens Tid is an amazing album, brutal Viking metal you could say; great vocals, and songs that go from epic to obscure moment’s right before battle. There is a great mix of folk music and metal; they make the violins, horns and other rare instruments blend perfectly with the speed and brutality of metal, always achieving a melodic sound that never lacks of force to keep you headbanging no matter what.

Vredens Tid is well thought, well planned and recorded to perfection. Some Viking metal bands get a little tedious from time to time making huge tracks and placing incredible big instrumental pieces that really don’t help the record reach a metal fan, and that is something Manegarm doesn’t do; they do have a couple of instrumental segments and some atmospheric sounds to make everything sound more epic and ancient, but they never fall into a empty space where a certain person can show how great he or she is.

The album goes from metal, to folk, back to metal and in between some atmospheric sounds; this is the kind of Viking metal that will really make you picture battles and brave warriors fighting and dying, not the kind of folk music that will make you picture a happy troll dancing around smiling like an idiot.

11 songs, each one with a different approach and “groove” make Vredens Tid a master piece, off course you need to listen to this album more than once if you really want to get the whole idea and understand and appreciate every single “rare” instrument the band uses. There are a couple of tracks in which you can hear some female vocals that give a melodic yet dark feeling to the songs, this parts and sang by Umer Mossige-Norheim who recorded them in just one day in studio with the band.

To name a couple of tracks as “the best” of the album will be unfair, so I will just let you know my personal favorites:

Sigrblot: this is the second track of the album, and actually the first song because track #1 is an intro; the drums in here are powerful and keep the whole song alive and brutal until some folk singing and some acoustic guitar make a pause to break the speed and introduce a new couple of great guitar riffs that take you back to that hard and brutal drumming you heard in the beginning.

Skymningsresa: the third track, and probably a great example of the perfect mix of metal and folk music; it has melody and violence in its riffs, a groove that only can be presented and described as folk music and experienced as a metal song… nice violins in this one.

Vredens Tid: the beginning of this song is just great, some fade out riffs that resemble something like a radio on the background and slowly the songs begins to pick up some volume; the female vocals come into play and a few seconds later, the male vocals gave birth to the most powerful song of the album.

To end with a very melancholic “good by my friends” kind of song Segervisa wraps the whole production with finesse and the folk sound that inspired the band to play what they play; great song with chants and a acoustic guitar that helps Umer shows just how beautiful her voice is.

To conclude, the only bad thing about this record is that it will place a lot of pressure on Manegarm, they have place the bar really high with this one.