AMON AMARTH – CAPITOL, PERTH 24/11/09

By METAL BILLY

Support – Morghul

And yet again the true owners of the Devil’s Horns, those faithful to the riff-tastic snarl of true metal, gathered rowdily at Capitol for a much anticipated assault by the most famous Swedish band starting with an ‘A’ since ABBA – Amon Amarth ( Trivia : An alternate name for Mt Doom in Tolkien’s Rings Trilogy – Amon = hill , Amarth = fate / doom ).

Entering the venue just in time to catch Morghul’s last song, I was more intrigued by the lead singer’s resemblance to Ronnie James Dio crossed with Klaus Meine and did not really hear enough to make a call on this band.

Following a dramatic intro bathed in purple light, Viking Death Metal champions Amon Amarth exploded on stage with the title track from 2008’s excellent “Twilight of the Thunder Gods” album that would melt those wimpy vamps fangs off, with man-mountain vocalist Johan Hegg revving up the seething crowd as they tore head on into Free Will Sacrifice before taking a breather.

Explaining that they were not long off a plane from Switzerland and were a tad tired, they never let it show with a full tilt performance playing almost 2/3 of “TOTTG” in the first 9 songs including ‘Guardians of Asgaard’ and ‘Live for the Kill’, sprinkled with older material such as ‘Bleed for Ancient Gods’.

Three things stood out :

(1) How good the mix was as you could hear every word Hegg was growling in a voice so deep it almost hit the ‘brown note’ a few times, although the crunching guitars of Johan Soderberg and Olavi Mikkonen, chunky bass from Ted Lundstrom and Frederik Andersson’s (is he related to Benny?) driving double kick drumming were all there to be savored

(2) How much crowd participation was tolerated by the band with at least one crowd member on stage at
any time, but the guy who managed the horizontal full spinning stage dive wins the prize, and the way the band handled and enjoyed the stage invasions was very cool indeed

(3) These guys are one HAIRY bunch of Vikings inspiring much crowd hair wind-milling which nearly took my eye out.

The latter part of the set consisted of some classic AA material with the highlights being the speed metalish ‘Asator’, ‘Death in Fire’ and encore of one of my personal favourites ‘The Cry of the Blackbirds’ and closing sea shanty crowd sing a long of ‘The Pursuit of Vikings’.

The charismatic Hegg and his bandmates sincerely praised the masses and the sweaty crowd of black shirted disciples returned the thanks tenfold and threw the horns up en masse - and not one ballad or ABBA song within 10 miles on this most metal of nights. All praise Oden and Thor for that!

Rating : 4.5 out of 5 DM’s

Set list :

1. Intro / Twilight of the Thunder Gods
2. Free Will Sacrifice .
3. Valkyrie’s Ride
4. Varyags of Miklagaard
5. Bleed For Ancient Gods
6. Guardians of Asgaard
7. Where Silent Gods Stand Guard
8. Tattered Banners and Bloody Flags
9. Live For The Kill
10. Gods of War Arise
11. Asator
12. Runes To My Memory
13. Death In Fire
14. Cry of the Blackbirds
15. The Pursuit of Vikings