Setting out on longboats to Lindisfarne back in 2012 it would appear these Italians somehow thought they had Viking heritage when they started out with their debut EP. Since then they have steered their way through Midgard, Ragnarok, wars and chaos via four full length albums and on their 5th here seem to be looking at Dante’s Inferno for inspiration and depicting a “dystopic portrait of the present times.” If like me you had never encountered the band and taken one look at the label and assumed they were of a symphonic / power metal persuasion, you couldn’t be further from the truth. This is ballsy and surprisingly quite hefty death metal with a whole load of thrash and powerful groove about it.
With drummer Mike Bald laying down some battering ballast we swing straight into ‘A Full Reload of Fear.’ It’s not long before the hoary full-bodied yells of vocalist Ark Nattlig Ulv enter the fray and he really rallies around with coarse and embittered snarls, all elongated and bellowed out, impossible to ignore. Meanwhile the guitars add melody as they weave around. At times there is actually a flow to them that almost tricks you in to believing a violin is being played. It’s obviously not but it does catch me off guard a bit as does the mellow acoustic exit from this particular number. Tracks like ‘Wasteland’ have a full on stomp and chest beating, almost vest beating feel about them. The vocalist by now is all piss and vinegar and you are well aware he is not going to chill in the slightest over the album. Neat beats and rugged riffs power away but the underlying melodicism is never far away either.
Whatever the band sounded like at the beginning with all that Viking schtick, this thankfully does not sound like the work of an Amon Amarth clone now. It’s far too burly and bruising, no plastic swords in sight. Themes may still not make perfect sense as we suddenly whip into the thrashy ‘Dagon’ suggesting an HP Lovecraft chapter, perhaps with lyrics it would all be clearer, perhaps it’s not meant to but only have you jumping up and down in your boots, which it does admirably.
One other thing that struck me at various times is the drumming rhythms whipped up by Mr Bald. The one starting up the galloping ‘The Edge’ being a prime example sounding like it was manufactured by Fear Factory straight out the mid-90’s and nothing wrong with that in the slightest. There’s also plenty of energy and snap about this that would appeal to fans of bands from the era as diverse as Face Down and Pissing Razors. Forget the themes here, the world is full of doom and gloom and we are all well aware of it. This is an enjoyable album and one can easily head-bang away, take in the delirious guitar solo pitched up in the middle of ‘Eternal Attack’ and the sledgehammer drive of ‘Their Game’ and wreck with abandon wishing for a pit to throw yourself around in. Not sure just what I have missed in the past but it strikes that Inferno XXXIII is a damn good starting point to get acquainted to Ulvedharr. The boys from Bergamo done good.
(7.5/10 Pete Woods)
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