Writing almost entirely in Swedish, Månegarm are clearly an outfit that targets a narrow demographic, though a cover of Motorhead‘s “ (Don’t Need) Religion” and a nice little ode to the devil offer respite to audiences who simply cannot handle anything other than English.

This, however, is a Månegarm album, and as such, they admirably live up to their reputation as reliable dealers of rough-edged melodic folk metal with the occasional violin, female lead vocalist, and black-metal outburst. And that’s cool and all, but it’s the following tracks, “ Hervors arv” and “ Slaget vid Bråvalla,” that have me all freaking giddy, because it sounds almost as if we’ve finally heard from Defender again after a twenty-year absence. The fury we hear on this album’s opening track “ Sveablotet” certainly recalls the black metal and viking metal bands among whom Månegarm are routinely mentioned, with a healthy dose of clean vocals at the interlude that remind the astute listener of Vintersorg. Which is why I feel kinda giddy listening to Fornaldarsagor, the first offering from Sweden’s Månegarm in some four years. The meh production and vocals did absolutely nothing to detract from gems such as “ High Himalayan Valley.” Defender seemed poised to save power metal from itself. It stood above the fray because rather than aping Helloween or other p-metal greats of yore, Defender channeled the NWOBHM underworld and created a slab of beefy melodic heavy metal that both sounded and looked like it could have inspired Iron Maiden. The album was called They Came Over the High Pass, and it was released by Necropolis Records, a grimy little label that specialized in really bad black and death metal and released only a handful of great albums. It was a side project by Afflicted bassist Philip Von Segebaden called Defender. But among that stupefying bombardment of mediocrity, one minor classic slipped through the cracks bearing an unlikely imprint and went almost completely unnoticed.

Even fewer can forget the absolute barrage of garbage that those albums inspired it was enough to turn me off the entire subgenre within a year of discovering it. Few can forget the Power Metal resurgence that truly great records like Visions, Return to Heaven Denied, and Glory to the Brave sparked in the late 90s.

Manegarm fornaldarsagor torrent