Review: Amon Amarth

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Amon Amarth
“Versus the World”
(Metal Blade)

There’s an overall melancholy feel to the recording which is strange for such double bass driven death metal, but I often find that death metal tends to alter my mood towards melancholy.  That’s probably why I have never been as completely fond of it as I could be.  I love loud, fast and aggressive music but certain types of metal and certain metal bands, Amon Amarth amongst ’em, cause me to wallow in depression and self-pity, and who the hell wants to be taken there by music?  Sure, sometimes, it’s necessary to despair for your sad, short and insignificant time on this insignificant, pointless and brutal world just to put your existence and the nature of the universe back into its proper perspective, but this form of musically induced meditation is necessary maybe once a year.

Other than that once a year, I’d like to avoid the cold, hard slap that is reality as much as possible.  That’s why I’m a drinker.  That’s why I’m a drunk.  That’s why I am part of the Jolly Men of Liquor.  It’s not a sickness, baby.  It’s a way of life.  And it’s hard to take twelve steps in a straight line when you’re falling over drunk, and that’s the way, uh-huh-uh-huh, I like it.  But I don’t like Amon Amarth.  I just simply do not.  Sorry.  I wish I could like them, but it’s what they do to me.  They’re a bleak overcast day in an otherwise uninterrupted land of sunshine.  They’re forlorn desolate winter in a tropical paradise.

Do you see?  This music is killing me.